Today we headed to Coire an Lochain to do some more steep ground work as part of a mountain journey.
The early part of the day was spent on the steep slopes on the western side of the coire. We were asked to cut steps for our selves and for others both up hill and across short sections of ice and snow. We also looked at a few scenarios and were asked to deal with them. An example of this was a lost crampon or axe.
We then journeyed on to the summit of Cairn Lochain and found some gully lips to descend into. The first task was to lower someone over the edge of the lip for them to dig an avalanche inspection pit and decide whether the gully line was safe to descend or not. Our next tasks were to lower some one over small corniced edges using a stomper belay and then to set up a short abseil over the same edge using a snow bollard as our anchor. We then descended through some steep broken ground discussing the use of direct belays and confidence roping and when they are appropriate.
The air temperature hovered around the -8 mark today but with little wind and the sun shining it was a pleasurable day in the hills.
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