 Poster: A snowHead
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Nice initiative from Nevis Range, do any of the dates coincide with the snowheads tour of Scotland ? ... http://snowsports.nevisrange.co.uk/Freeride_Clinics
I'll certainly be booking on one of these and having enjoyed one of their back country skills courses in the back corries a couple of years ago, I know they'll be providing more opportunities to get hints and tips, not just on technique but on mountain safety too. My bete noire is dropping through empty space onto the steep uppermost slopes (edit = <50 degrees) from the cornices which often rim the corries and which just do my head in. I really want to learn to get over the cornices, both metaphorically and physically. 
It'll be a great opportunity to learn new skills and tactics in one of the most spectacular off piste areas in Europe, and will be even better if the weather decides to be nice. 
[Edit] ... to whoever you were  ... thanks for moving this topic out of Scotland snow thread and giving it a nice title. Great idea & I wish I'd thought of that. 
Freeride Clinics 2013
SKIERS ... Learn to ski the steep and explore the Back Corries ....
Dedicated coaches will provide technical instruction, steep skiing tactics and a good dose of local knowledge. The clinic is aimed at the adventurous advanced to expert skier ... if you can ski ungroomed black runs, then this is the right course for you!
Dates - Sat 9 Feb, Sat 16 Feb, Sat 23 Feb - more dates will be added soon if there's demand
Times - 9am - 3pm, minimum 3 persons. Meet at 'meeting area' outside gondola top station at 9am.
Cost - £90 for the day, price INCLUDES an adult Zone A ski pass. Participants need to complete a Participation Statement.
Safety Equipment - participants MUST have a transceiver, shovel and probe - these are not provided, but may be hired from Nevis Range Equipment Hire - book in advance. Helmets are recommended.
Booking - in advance - call 01397 705825 & ask for Snowsports School - on the day - visit Snowsports School office at top or base gondola station
Ability required - able to competently ski black runs
Subject to - weather conditions, minimum numbers & availability
Minimum age - 18 years
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Mon 21-01-13 22:10; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Good idea! If anyone does it I'd be interested to know how it goes.
The problem in getting in is worse when the snow is rock hard at the top (as it often is), though 60º is an exaggeration.
Was that photo taken on Skips? I've only skied that once but would like to again this year if possible.
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Tue 22-01-13 11:18; edited 1 time in total
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| snowball wrote: |
| 60º is an exaggeration. |
Had FB message back re. inclinometer readings and you were right snowball, I remembered wrong  ...
"Ross, Spikes was 48-50 for the first 3m then mellowing quickly to less than 40. Anything over 50 is properly steep - West Gully on Braeriach for example is 56 degrees for 20m
The fun part is...every year can be different!
Also the 48-50 degree section was skiers right of where we normally enter....the normal skiers entrance is nearer the crag that separates spikes from coire an lochain and the gradient there is usually less."
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I'd love to do something like this. Cost of travelling and staying over will triple the cost for me though 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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N.B. the wind related statements in the blog on the left when you open the link - says it all really!
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| RattytheSnowRat wrote: |
| N.B. the wind related statements in the blog on the left when you open the link - says it all really! |
RattytheSnowRat, by its nature, the instruction starts from the very summit of one of the highest mountains in north west Europe so yes, there is a pretty obvious weather risk. Visibility is important as the terrain is steep and cornices line the headwalls. Equally a wind / weather related disclaimer would apply to off piste courses relying on entrances to lines off the summits of the high mountains of the Alps too like say Valluga, La Meije, Bellecote or even that wee hill above Chamonix.
So no, a wind related statement doesn't reveal anything surprising (or even unique to Scotland) but what a remark like "N.B. ... says it all really" does reveal is naive expectations, tunnel vision or both.
The Back Coires two days ago ...
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Someone mentioned on the Scottish bash thread that there is one of these courses on Saturday 23rd. However I can't see any dates on their website.
Trouble is most people like to do the Saturday at Cairngorm and if I'm lucky I might persuade a few to go over on the Sunday.
moffatross, how did your session go?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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It was a good day snowball, although it ended up costing me a long overdue new pair of boots too. We skied Lemmings, Backtrack, Yellow Belly, Chancer (twice) and finished with a run down Spikes and out through Coire an Lochan. As you can imagine with that lot, it was a hard day too. We had a London based snowsport journalist join us who was totally taken aback by what he was skiing, so looking forward to the article next season.
As far as I know, Saturday 23rd is a safety 'workshop' focussed on risk mitigation in the back coires (mostly snowpack assessment, avalanche avoidance and search techniques), not a ski coaching course. I attended one a couple of years ago and it is very worthwhile. It's led by Jeff Starkey, head of ski patrol.
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Not Easy Gully or Summit Gully? I had thought it would be all off piste and perhaps do something I hadn't done. Where did you enter Spikes? It is a very broad slope. Was it skiers (fairly far) left?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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We entered Spikes in its centre which was the simplest spot with very little cornice. There was however a progressively larger, wet cornice running away in both directions towards the buttresses separating Spikes from Coire an Lochan and Summit Gully. It was designed to be a coaching day not an exploring one so none of us had expectations of skiing anything off the map. I'm not sure what you meant about thinking it would be all 'off piste' though because all of the runs in the backs are 'off piste' and nothing has been pisted in there for many years. This season, everything has been reclassified to clarify the status and the old black runs are a legacy of a bygone era when a basher would be attached to winch points above Warrens and the top tow to mellow out the scarps and drive routes into Coire Dubh ...
http://snowsports.nevisrange.co.uk/Back_Corries
Chancer was once again a bit more daunting than Spikes and I'm sure Summit Gully would have been the gentler of all three because it appeared entirely cornice free. Summit is a run that is gentle enough that I once side slipped into it in pea soup visibility but it has a longer route out with navigation needing more care because of the snow covered lochans. Easy Gully wasn't skied by anyone because the visibility was generally poor and cornices were collapsing.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I looked at the piste map and you are right, it has changed. It now shows the runs East of Chancer as Itineraries but still marks the ones to the West as Back-country Itineraries (that is to say, the Summit Gully and Spikes - Easy Gully is not marked and never has been). The eastern ones used to be marked as normal pistes and the Western ones as something like itineraries but the current grading still seems to me to suggest on-piste and off-piste (which has nothing to do with groomed and ungroomed - though most pistes are groomed now). Pistes are closed when conditions make them dangerous and this is true of the regularly skied Eastern routes. In the Alps the itineraries are normally considered to be pistes. They are avalanche patrolled but not groomed. The Western routes are not avalanche patrolled and are fairly rarely skied. Both times I went there we made the first tracks..
What is easy or difficult tends to vary with conditions. When I did Chancer last time you could just ski in very simply, while Spikes involved a jump. However at other times I have known Chancer to be at least as difficult. My first visit the entry to Easy gully was icy and badly pock marked with boot holes from climbers and I didn't try it but the second time we did it twice - entering once from the left and once from the right.
Summit gully is lovely and, as you say, much easier but a bit of a walk to get to.
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moffatross, laddie, I partly learned to ski with the Army back when they ran the course in Glenshee (the rest of the tuition was when young in Aviemore). And this was back in the day when ski lifts were a luxury the Army thought you could do without, never mind GPS, Goretex or Thinsualte and probably before you could walk properly. There is nothing you can tell me about the wind in those mountains. And I've been in the Black Hills, Snowdon and up Pen y Fan at night when we have had to carry people off either bagged or with exposure just to name some places in these isles I've been out in the wind.
Since I was pointing out what someone else thought necessary to post in a link provided by you, I fail to see why your 'attitude' was directed at me. If it was so redundant, why did you point us to the link?
I was thinking of doing the course, for nostalgia's sake more than anything. If you are representative of the person taking the instruction, I'll give it a pass.
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You know it makes sense.
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RattytheSnowRat, your sole contribution to this thread was these words ...
| Quote: |
| N.B. the wind related statements in the blog on the left when you open the link - says it all really! |
What was its point really and if you thought it needed writing, why didn't you bother to qualify it rather than typing a throw away comment that sounded exactly like it was written by a drive-by troll ? And am I just imagining that Alpine resort off piste courses wouldn't have the same disclaimers and get weather related cancellations too ?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Handbags at dawn!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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moffatross, cool, a few friends from last year are competing again, the conditions look much better mind you. Should be ace!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| moffatross wrote: |
This thread is redundant now anyway as the last of these courses has already been run.
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I think there is one on the 23rd now.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Are you sure about that, snowball ? Like I said a few posts back, there's a 'back corries workshop' on the 23'rd but that's a different thing, run by ski patrol and is a safety session not a coaching day. I wasn't aware of another 'Freeride Clinic' on the same day.
Thinking about the argument a few posts back with a cooler head on, while a forum is a great place to air both the good stuff and the bad stuff, this thread was intended to draw attention to the 'Freeride Clinics' which I think Nevis Range should be applauded for arranging. Almost everybody likely to have thought about attending will have read the disclaimer and would have already known that Scottish skiing conditions can be 'erratic' and I didn't see the value in a comment that said nothing new nor positive. I should have just let it be but was riled and I know some people might just want to highlight negatives, however abruptly.
I'm away now. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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moffatross, oh OK, I misunderstood what that meant. So what do they do, teach about avalanche danger? Don't you actually look at and ski the slopes in question?
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Tue 19-03-13 11:59; edited 1 time in total
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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moffatross, you are still not getting it are you? My statement was related to the previous post to mine which you seem to have ignored. The fact is that for those of resident outside Scotland the combination of the two issues, increased cost and likelihood of cancellation due to weather, are the significant factors which make the course much, much less appealing. I agree that if the course goes ahead it would be a great experience for many but your tunnel vision and self-absorption mean that you do not seem capable of contemplating the difficulties others may have in committing and travelling to something that realistically may not even occur.
Assuming that you are not somehow related to those running the course – which I still think is a possibility - you might want to step back a bit before judging others, you seem intellectually ill equipped to do so.
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RattytheSnowRat, I'm sure moffatross lives in moffat given how much he skis in the Southern Uplands. There's a clue in his name. It's only 30 miles from the English border so he actually faces most of the problems of Northern English dwelling skiers in getting to the Scottish slopes. Doubt he can manage to organise freeriding clinics across the world since he has fairly young children - I've never met him but I have seen pictures of them skiing, posted by him on here and winterhighland.
The above post from nbt says 'triple the cost'. £300 is good value for a weekend skiing, especially including a days guided off-piste skiing. If I could go this weekend (unfortunately not an option) would I go? Probably not, forecast looks a bit windy TBH but I can tell that from my laptop, now. Typically Monday onwards looks great but the next undercutting low is waiting to spoil next weekend with more snow and accompanying wind...will it? I don't know yet but I'll have a very, very good idea by this time next week.
Skiing in Scotland is limited fairly commonly by the wind but taking a little time to study the weather forecast means never or rarely spending time and money without reward. And it means I can go skiing without any forward planning/taking holidays etc.
Finally, please stop being so rude, it's only 
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| Quote: |
£300 is good value for a weekend skiing
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In terms of weekend skiing, £300 is good value compared to the alps. Compared to £700 for 6 skiing days that you'd get for a week in the alps it's not such good value. As my money is more limited then my time, this plays a large part for me, I'd rather spend one week in the alps than 3 weekends in scotland as the latter would involve a lot more travelling and cost a lot more.
Nonetheless, I'd like to do one of these courses - in fact either of these courses.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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what...snow, I live in London (admittedly North London so it's not quite as bad in terms of travelling to Scotland, but still). I would not equate my transport, kit, bed and fodder costs at the level of £300 for the weekend, more like £600 including the cost of the course. And the purpose of my comment is that much of the expenditure would be wasted if the course was cancelled (even ignoring the cancellation point, I agree with nbt on the cost analysis).
It was a reasonable point and it was based (i) on my own experience - which I did not consider worth pointing out at the time and (ii) the comments raised in the post that we were directed to by moffatross. I made an off the cuff comment to that effect and got a bunch of pompous twaddle from moffatross in response.
Your point about looking at the weather forcast only applies if you live within a reasonable distance of the Nevis range. Even then, I have spent large chunks of my life sitting in portacabins beside airfields waiting for the highly unpredictable weather in this country to allow me to step out of an aircraft at a reasonable height. I've also been in various ranges in Scotland, primarily the Cairngorms, standing in a total whiteout or horizontal rain when the mid range weather forecast had been 'fine' (one time in the 90's I ruined a pair of skis because I could not even see the ground). I don't tend to rely on the mid/long range weather forecasting in this country for anything anymore.
As said, and I'll say it again, I think the course sounds great and good value - if you live within driving distance or happen to be there for other reasons. If I were running the course I would be marketing it in Aberdeen or other oil platform jump off points on the East Coast. All the space and movement in the Nevis range would appeal after being cooped up in the rigs.
If moffatross had not sounded off, I certainly would not have done so. And I never suggested he was running the course, simply that he was somehow linked to those doing so which would explain the advertisment above and his prickly response to my very minor comment. The advice I gave to him, please apply to yourself. 
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RattytheSnowRat, I'm still trying to reconcile what you "did not consider worth pointing out at the time" with the lengthy replies and personal assumptions that you've made since, and I was left with the impression that you were trolling from the off, especially given your abrasive style. I should give you the benefit of the doubt though so let me apologise for affronting you by jumping to that conclusion but can I also suggest that you do consider expanding on what might otherwise be misinterpreted as deliberate antagonism in the future ? I'm passionate about what home-grown skiing has to offer and sometimes too quick to respond when I think it's being put down unduly by people who don't understand it or just want to knock it for fun.
On the upside though, if I hadn't "started sounding off" in that "prickly response" with its "bunch of pompous twaddle" without considering that I "might want to step back a bit before judging others" because I "seem intellectually ill equipped to do so", the "advertisement above" wouldn't have got nearly so many hits.
And BTW, the "advertisement above" was really a surprise creation by a forum moderator, and not my idea at all.
PS, what...snow, those fairly young children are in their mid and late teens now and are reluctant to get out of bed before midday on the weekend these days.
PPS, snowball, the 'back corrie workshop' is held in Coire Dubh and includes safe, led skiing in, test pit digging and snow assessment, transceiver search practice and classroom theory. On the day that I attended a couple of seasons ago, the upper mountain was closed for high wind so we were treated to two snowcat rides to the summit for laps of Chancer and Winger.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I notice from Nevis reports and photos that they say the back corries were bady wind-scoured (even worse than the front which looks like it has less snow than a week ago). So should I avoid Nevis if I come up in a week from now, or is it OK?
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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moffatross, ah, that's a shame.
Your photos make me think Nevis isn't the best bet.
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FAQ
