Saturday 9 December 2017

Indoor Ice Climbing at The Ice Factor

It’s always exciting when you arrive somewhere in the dark and wake up to see the view. It was still snowing hard when we woke, but gradually the clouds began to lift revealing the Loch shores and distant mountains.



The team got involved with getting the Scottish porridge going and we practiced our glove dexterity for ice climbing by eating breakfast with my gloves on!



By the time we’d stopped in Fort William for supplies, the skies had cleared to reveal a stunning panorama up to Glen Coe.



The drive around to Kinlochleven was a stunner.



The afternoon was spent teaching crampon and ice axe techniques at the Ice Factor, which is an indoor Ice Climbing Centre. We’d booked our slot well in advance, so even though it was a good hill day, we made the most of the indoor facilities.



The group took it in turns as they tired out quickly hanging from their arms! I was well wrapped up and spent the full four hours in the giant freezer!



In and unexpected way, I had a wonderful evening catching up with old friends, who had heard our our arrival in the area. Firstly, Mark, a past student of mine came over to catch up over dinner (thanks for cooking Nick!) and afterwards, I had a cuppa with Alex who I did my PGCE with at Bangor University - who unknown to me until this afternoon, she lives about 100m from the bunkhouse we are staying in! Great to catch up with great people.

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