Our first day out in Lyngen and we eased ourselves in with a trip up the 1142m Storhaugen. The weather was absolutely ridiculous and we could never have dreamed that the conditions would be this good. Low avalanche risk, blue skies and good snow.
Winter had clearly not arrived in north west Scotland yet, but even so, Owen, Clay and I made a somewhat speculative hike up into Coire Mhic Fherchair. With the wrong mixture of wet rock and soft snow we abandoned climbing and topped out onto the col into a monstrous wind roaring across the mountains.
Ross, Clay and I woke up to a beautiful dusting of snow on the hills so we skipped the films and headed straight for Langdale and the short walk in to Gimmer. The wind was still but the air was super cold so we didn't feel up to anything too taxing and eventually opted for 'A' route. Clay even got hot aches in his foot, poor guy.
Clay and I spent the afternoon climbing on the impressive Wildcat Crags, sat above the rather bizarre town of Matlock Bath. Excellent rock and routes for only my second ever outing on Peak limestone.
Two weeks spent trying to climb a long, unclimbed ridgeline in a cool little valley in central Tajikistan. Challenging climbing at above 5000m that resulted in several new routes but the complete traverse remains to be claimed!
More information can be found at www.muzkol2015.co.uk
Inaccurate forecasts turned our planned climbing trip into a weekend of wet ascents in the Carneddau. Never mind!
