North Wales Mountaineeering

November, as usual, has been a mixed month - the days are short and the weather variable, courses are a little fragmented, with the change of emphasis from rock climbing to mountaineering, with some reports of winter climbing in Scotland, the anticipation to get out onto some snow and ice is building - I took delivery of some new ice axes today, just to get in the mood !

Thanks to James and Christophe for some very enjoyable climbing in the sunshine at Symonds Yat - although not as warm as Christophe's

native France, it was lovely to see the full autumn colours against a blue sky - more blue sky and soft colours in Snowdonia last week, although we had to endure one day of persistent cold rain and strong winds - thanks to Mark, Brett, Tim, Chris and Barry for rising to the challenge - they had already enjoyed some fantastic weather in the mountains early in the week on a mountaineering course with me assisting on the more technical days - they were all still going well though even by Friday - good effort !

More Autumn colours !

Introductory courses this week continued to enjoy the good conditions - and despite early forecasts for rain, the warm temperatures improved conditions instead, allowing us to pick and choose the best routes.
Improving confidence has been a popular theme for courses recently and with the good conditions we have concentrated on climbing routes which, although being challenging, have been achievable. This can be a bit of a problem on limestone, as it has the characteristic of forming steep and often overhanging cliffs - quite intimidating if you are not used to the verticality ! it does, however, compensate to a degree with fairly positive holds.
The more relaxed angle routes are at a premium - often with ques on the best and with subsequent polished holds ) luckily this hasn't been too much of a problem this week, with only a few teams out, despite being half term. Without getting involved in too much ' pyschobabble' I've been researching the mental development which goes along with the technical development when learning to climb and have found a few more strategies which may help in progression.