A Return of Spring in Ireland

 An Sho, with the snow finally retreating upwards in the Irish uplands and Spring has made a return in the form of torrential rain and hurricane winds. But all is not lost to the elements as the ever dry Cruit Island has came up trumps over the last two weeks with 4 different groups of people requiring instruction into the vertical world. Four different groups with four very different remits and goals, ranging from first time rock climbers through to a couple of gentlemen heading to distant lands for something very spicy indeed.

Rock Climbing Courses in Donegal

A happy climber

A busy Donegal Beach

Jock's Wall, Cruit Island

Jock's Wall

Crack 'n' Slab HS 4b

 It's been a funny old couple of weeks with a couple of near misses with nearly appearing on television and very nearly jumping out of a plane. But it's the hits that count and the very final touches are being added to the very soon to be released Donegal guidebook, with graded lists, graded colour bands, an introduction page and a major rechecking of many of the routes and grades. 

 There are now 17 free PDF downloadable Donegal rock climbers guidebooks on the Unique Ascent Website, I've just got the Inishowen PDF to finish and upload and they are done. There are several further definitive guides to be finished such as Owey, Tory and Arranmore Island but alas I still require calm seas to get a few of the sea cliff topos pictures.  

 Got out to play with the depressingly talented noble brother Kevin McGee and another three new routes were added to Cruit island's New Dawn Wall, and with very strong rumours that noble brother Hugh Hennessy has been quietly filling in a few gaps on the island over the last few weeks, Cruit Island is far from the end of it's development stage. :-) 

Donegal Winter Adventures

 And so, Donegal has had it's 5 days of winter conditions and the ambient air temperature has shot back up to low teens and it seems very unlikely that the snow and ice will return to the uplands of the county, this winter. Just before the end of our short winter I ran a mountain skills course in Donegal and caught the last of the snow and ice in the North West of Ireland.

Donegal Winter Mountains

A Frozen Glenveagh

Ireland Winter Mountains

 As soon as the mountains were back to being green again, it was over to Cruit Island to run a mid February, weekends Rock Improvers Course. Since 1st January 2013 we have been on Cruit four times leading routes up to HVS in glorious sunshine and on one occasion it was mentioned it was beginning to get too hot. :-)

Donegal rock Climbing Course

 It is also the time of years to stand in front of large groups of people and talk, this winter I have did talks to the Irish Mountaineering Club in Dublin and at UCC for Kerry Climbing. Doing talks is a surreal activity and pretty much as scary as soloing a sea stack. The sponsor for the Cork talk was Alpine Sports.ie, have a wee look at their site for very competitive prices their huge range of mountaineering equipment.

Cork Mountaineering Talk

 No sooner back from Cork and it was into the Donegal hills once again, this time spring was very much in attendance.

 Ran a Mountain Leader Training Week based out of Ardara with 5 troopers on the course and a huge mixture of weather in the five days of training. 

Mountain Leader Rope Work

Mountain Leader Client Care

Mountain Leader Group Management

Mountain Leader Steep Ground

ML Expedition Campsite

Tormore Island 

 All in all a very varied two weeks in the great outdoors and with the diary pretty much full for March there are a few perhaps more unusual activities in the pipeline! :-) 

  

Mountain Training in Ireland

An sho, with the most defo passing of an outstanding summer in the distant North West, long gone are the warm sunny days and bright blue skies to be replaced with snow on the hills (Hurrah!) and white water rage on the coast line.

Ireland's Longest Rock climb

 Having spent the summer guiding people to some of the most outrageous locations in Ireland it is now the time of year to share these skills and the knowledge required to safely visit these outstanding locations and thus allow people to expand their horizons and safely visit their own outstandingly beautiful places of their desires. 

Eagles Rock, Leitrim

Glenlough Bay, Donegal

 Over the last few weeks what started as a trickle has become a flood of people requiring a vast array of different mountain training for many many different personal goals.
 Paid a visit to Dalkey Quarry and ran a days Single Pitch Award refresher course, ran several Learn to Lead courses, a Single Pitch Award Training course, a Mountain Skills 1 Training Course, directed a Mountain Leader Assessment and trained several people with very specific noble goals from sea stack climbing to standing on the summit of Everest.

Night Navigation in Donegal

 Mountain Leader Assessment

12 Bens Connemara

Mountain Skills Training

Learn to Lead Rock Climb, Donegal

Mountain Skills Training Sligo

Single Pitch Award Training

Group Abseil, SPA training

Mountain Skills Training, Donegal

 With continued bookings for many more courses one thing always stands out as a common denominator, there are people from all walks of life with a huge range of life experience all with a common goal and that is to explore, push their personal limitations and have as much fun as possible in the process. :-)