I have just spent a week mountaineering in the Scottish highlands with Jagged Globe. I opted for the Intro to winter mountaineering. I have done a lot of winter walks and some more accessible stuff, but There are also a lot of winter skills I haven’t done. I wanted to build some solid fundamentals and skills in a winter environment. I’m confident in the mountains but want to develop more technical knowledge.
In this post, I will talk about expectations vs what we did. I will also speak about Jagged Globe, what I learned, and whether the course is worth it.
The week in review
I want to mention that I had to bail on day one due to throwing up and being unable to eat. I was in pretty bad shape on day one and slept all day. I didn’t miss much, mainly because I had already used crampons.
Accommodation
Firstly, I want to talk about the Ballachulish hotel briefly. This is the hotel that Jagged Globe uses for most of their Scottish winter trips. We arrived on Sunday and had an easy check-in where we chose what dinner would be for that night and could choose what packed lunches we wanted throughout the week.
The hotel staff were great. Apart from a bit of a grumpy barman, the service was impeccable, but he was still lovely and always seemed to be in a mood. The food was average at best, even one day not having enough food, so I had to get something else despite placing the order at breakfast (12 hours prior).
The staff rotation is crazy. We had the same four waiters the whole week for breakfast and dinner.
The Course
Overall, the course was five days of actual training, plus one evening for meeting the staff and checking the kit.
Day one
In Scotland was over before it even started. I woke up and was sick and couldn’t eat. Therefore, I opted to rest for the day without mountaineering. However, I felt better when they returned, so I joined the debrief and looked at day two.
Sadly, I will only get four days in the mountains, but it is what it is. There was still a lot to come.
Day two
Today we started better. Still lacking sleep and a bit ill, I got some food ready to join in and get some learning done. Today the plan was to head up into the mountains. No summit today, but we hiked up the valley towards Stob Corie Nan Lochen. We used snow slopes to start and learned snow anchors for belaying.
I wanted to learn this, so it was a good start. We also tested the anchors; they would take much weight to fail. We then hiked some more, and under cloud cover, we did a bit of low visibility navigation training, along with how to use packing with our baring to end up at the right pace. We were pacing, counting the steps to a rough 100 meters.
Day three
On day three in Scotland, today we didn’t have ideal weather due to high winds, so we decided to stay low and do some technical learning. We split the day into two halves. We headed to a local crag for the first half of the day to learn how to rappel and practice some knots.
In the second half of the day, we had something more fun in store. We headed to Kinlochleven for the Ice Factor. Suppose you’ve not heard of it. The Ice Factor is a climbing gym home to the world’s largest indoor ice climbing wall.It was excellent, and our instructor Clive is qualified to instruct and teach us there. We learned how to use crampons and axes for Ice climbing. We also did some drills, such as climbing and placing ice screws one-handed.
Day four
Today was for a summit and navigation. We headed to the Nevis Range to climb Anoch Mor. The conditions were rough, but nothing too challenging to walk in. Wind gusts up to 45. I learned a lot about navigation pacing and how to do so in a whiteout, trusting the map and compass, and taking a back baring to ensure you’re on track.
Day Five
The final day…
Today we headed back up to Stob Corie Nan Lochan. So, the long hike up the valley began. We were expecting today to be quite bad, according to the forecasts, luckily they were incorrect, and it ended up being the best day.
Sadly we had no summit today due to time constraints. However, we got to go up a grade one gulley and then created snow anchors at the top to test our skills again. After this, we started our descent via some snow slopes to practice/have a first go at ice axe arrests.
Instructors
We had three instructors throughout the week. Clive was with us all five days, Olan for the first two and Ella was with us for the final three. In other words, we had two guides at once, which was a good amount.
Clive – Clive had a lot of good knowledge to share and strong opinions. Spoke very strongly about the difference in forecasts vs live data. He has also climbed notable routes such as El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite.
Olan – I have less to say about Olan as I was only with him for one day. From what I got, he is very experienced and has some good knowledge to share. I would have liked to work with him more, see his opinions, and learn from him.
Ella – Ella is very bubbly and knows what she is talking about. She can be firm sometimes, but it’s for a good reason. This helps push you to reach a higher potential and minimise mistakes. I noticed many people on the course praised her for this and made them overcome their fears.
We didn’t see a lot of other instructors. They seemed friendly, but I can’t say much about them as I wasn’t guided by them this time. Maybe next year if I look into a private trip.
Final opinion
I have covered most of my opinions throughout the whole post. This is an inciteful course, and there is a lot you will gain from doing it. Jagged globe is also easy to work with and very transparent with everything you need, and it is always on hand if you need any help.
Check out the Scarpa MTech GTX boot I used on this trip.
Disclaimer: As much as I wish this were a sponsored trip, I paid for this out of pocket and have no affiliation with Jagged Globe at the time of writing this. All views are my own.
PS. If this were sponsored I wouldn’t have accepted unless I was allowed to be fully transparent with my readers. I pride myself in giving high quality truthful and informative posts.
