It was a real pleasure last week for Big Tree Campervans to play our part in hosting a visiting group of four fantastic climbers from Germany & Quebec - Mat Audibert, Audrey Gariepy, Hans Hornberer and Ines Papert. Ines, Audrey and Mat are three of the Arc'teryx sponsored athletes, and the plan for all four was to sample the very best of Scottish winter climbing. They couldn’t have picked a better week, with superb climbing conditions and clear blue skies. Earlier in the week they had had some fantastic days in the Northern Corries, Aonach Mor, Creag Meagaidh, and Glen Coe, so Ian Parnell and I headed over to the North West with them on Wednesday evening. All six of us took up residence in the campervans for a couple of nights in the Beinn Eighe car park. On the Thursday, Ian and Ines made a very slick ascent of Blood Sweat & Frozen Tears (VIII,8), with Hans dangling off an abseil rope taking some very impressive movie and still footage. Audrey and Mat wanted to experience a longer classic, so the three of us climbed Central Buttress (VI,7) with Audrey using some choice language on the crux squeeze chimney! After a very sociable meal for six (yes it is possible...just.. for 6 adults to cosily eat in one campervan!), we headed out again on Friday, with Audrey, Mat and I doing Poacher’s Fall on Liathach. The route was in superb condition, and it really was great to see the Qubecoise style and ease on steep ice. Ines persuaded Ian to go for horribly early start (3.20am) to make the walk back up to Beinn Eighe, and they came away with a short but testing new line on Far East Wall (‘Little Nipper’, VI,8). I was really pleased the visitors had such a fab time in the campervans, which did prove (again) to be a great base for winter activities, as well as simply great fun!

I got back home to Perth late on Friday evening, with just enough time to re-pack one of the campervans before heading back up north with Malcolm Bass...to guess where... back to the Beinn Eighe car park! After hearing about the previous few days, Malcolm was really keen to make the best of the conditions and the weather, and we set the alarm for 3.00am and headed up to Beinn Eighe with some new route possibilities in mind. We then spent a couple of hours moving from east to west along the series of buttresses, where frustratingly we found each of our potential lines not to be adequately white and wintery. Eventually we ended up on Fuselage Wall, with the last possible line we had in mind. This fortunately was white, and stayed so even though the top of the buttress did start to strip in the afternoon sun. We came away with a great little route, ‘Tail-End Charlie’ (VI,7) which takes a the steep groove immediately right of the start of Bombs Away, shares the belay of Ace, climbs a steep groove left of Ace, then moves up to the final overhang of Fight or Flight before moving steeply out right via a sensational diving board. Whilst Malcolm was leading the first pitch we met up with James Edwards of High Mountaineering who was guiding two clients up Fuselage Gully, and all three looked to be having a fantastic time on such a superb day.

With weather like this in Scotland, for the past four days, it’s seemed like everyone has been smiling!