Well the winter continues to be kind to us, members have been out individually all over the Lakes and some have made regular forays into the Scottish Highlands, notably Phil and Sue who disappeared for about a week and knocked off a number of outstanding ice routes, well done them.

Jan 29th to 31st. Newtonmore, Cairngorms meet.

Our annual Cairngorm weekend was dogged by a poor forecast for much of the week leading up to the trip, with heavy snow forecast in strong Northerly winds. True to form this arrived on the Friday, blowing out John's day working in Aberdeen and making it impossible to get up to Elgin and Inverness for his afternoon appointments.

Meanwhile, over in Aviemore, Dan Bulman, Pete Sowerby and Martin Smith made it up by lunchtime and spent the afternoon, in a fine ‘ Sneachda, enjoying a quick solo of Aladdin's Couloir, and bumped into Tim (The Terminator) Millen who had just popped up to solo Red Gully, The Runnel and Aladdins Mirror Direct, his first Scottish grade IV! And so, the theme was set for the weekend.

Dodgy road conditions meant a depleted turn out for this snowy meet. Parking up at John`s place, Sue and I piled into his car and headed for Glenridding. After a failed attempt to drive up to Greenside, we forked out a hefty £6.50 for the car park and steeled ourselves for the extra walk in.

It wasn`t long before Sue was cramponing up on the icy road, something John might have wished he had done after a nasty tumble.

Emerging from a blizzard, we struck up across the moor to the base of the gully, below Catsycam. One or two bits of attractive ice might have tempted us to stop but we were holding out for the gully and its offerings. Travelling light, we got to work with twin axes,crampons and helmets on the steep little entry pitch, then stuck to the stream bed for maximum ice fun.