Ropes, Belays, Anchors

Today was all about climbing securely attached to a rope. We walked up Buachaille Etive Beag again this time with more snow on its slopes and then split into groups of three with one instructor each.
After a splendid day it was a bit murky again but not as wet as expected. Most of the rain and snow had come down over night.

I enjoyed the walk up to the col although I had been here before. Again we couldn't go to the south top, as the wind and avalanche risk wouldn't let us. And besides... we were here to practice our rope work. So we did and learned a lot about how to belay, how to build anchors and where to put the rope, etc.
Standing in the 35mph gusts was just about manageable, but still quite unpleasant. We were getting a bit cold, but it was good to get a better idea of what climbing in Scotland in winter is like. How cold it gets when you're belaying.

Stob Dubh at the far end of Buachaille Etive Beag

Buachaillie Etive Mor

Looking down Lairig Gartain

All of this is getting us prepped for our first graded routes from Wednesday on. The instructor student ratio will be 1:2 then. So tomorrow we're having a short window of pretty good weather. Off to The Ben we're going to apply all of the new skills to a proper route. Can't wait!!!