Scottish Winter Climbing

Climbing in Scotland, and in the other parts of the UK in winter has to be pretty unique. Having spent my formative years climbing in wet, cold wind blasted corries in the Cairngorms or the faces of Ben Nevis spending the year here climbing beautiful fat water ice in lovely cold dry conditions has been quite the contrast, a good one though. The routes are still challenging here, but theres not quite as much suffering involved which allows you to concentrate more on the climbing, perhaps allowing you to push yourself a little harder.

Anyhow trying to explain this contrast to locals has proven challenging, many have the view that the UK mountains, well our mere hills, are tame compared to the rest of the world and in some respects they probably are, but in others they are most certainly not. I found this video below and I think it gives a good picture of what the British winter climbing scene is like, and its not like its bias either - coming from a group of continentals! Make sure to watch it on full screen.



Obviously the grades these guys are knocking out are far harder than the average British climber, myself included climb and they do make some of them look pretty easy! But I'm a firm believer (perhaps because I don't in the grand scheme of things climb that hard) that climbing isn't about the grade, its about the process.