Glasgow Caledonian University Mountaineering Club Adventures: February 2013

On this Saturday four of us from the GCU Mountaineering Club headed up Ben Vane because we really needed to get out of the city again. As two of the club members are highly skilled in winter mountaineering and the other two had a basic understanding (thanks to a prior winter skills course sponsored by the GCU Mountaineering Club) they were aware of the risks that come with going out in winter.
Therefore we had packed the right equipment, grabbed our ice-axes and walking sticks and went out this Saturday in February to climb up Ben Vane in the Trossachs. The weather forecast appeared ideal as we were supposed to have little wind and around -5 degrees. Further, the avalanche forecasts were also assuring as most snow was supposed to have frozen into a proper layer and thus be not prone to fall down on us.
We set out on a paved road and after about an hour followed a rough path up the mountain. Initially the course was not too step but increased in difficulty while it lead on. The weather however was better than promised (with three out of four people only having to wear two instead of three layers) as we experienced only little wind and the exercise kept us warm. Just the German of the expedition kept claiming that he preferred the warmth but would later change is mind about that as well.
Eventually the path started to get icier and thus we put on crampons. These are devices with spikes that one clips to the end of their boots in order to find more hold in the ice. With them we kept going, our ice axes ready in case we would fall, keeping enough distance between each other but not loosing spirit. The sun had unexpectedly come out and gave us hope that we might enjoy a brilliant view from the top. Further it warmed us as we had only rarely seen this beautiful object in the Scottish sky.

After about 4 hours of travel we had finally made it to the top and were not disappointed. We could indeed see for miles with the sun shining down on us. We had a quick lunch, took amazing pictures that you can see below and made our way down.
Whereas going up had been difficult at especially one very narrow and steep step going down proved even more dangerous. Thanks though to the extensive knowledge of the two advanced winter mountaineer members we were able to abseil ourselves down safely and continue our journey without problems.
After, we learnt some more techniques, and got back to the car in roughly 3 ½ hours. A quick stop at a restaurant and a recapture of the day reinsured us that this had been a fantastic day out in Scottish nature with weather that couldn’t have been better, new experiences and a lot of fun.
Check out the pictures to get an idea of our trip and how much equipment we actually carried in order to be safe. Finally, don’t forget, going out in winter into the mountains is dangerous, especially if you are not skilled. Therefore take somebody with you who knows what they are doing and if you can’t find anybody just stay at home with a nice hot chocolate.