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Great craic, great gear, funky tools..shame about the weather

February 21, 2012 at 3:54 PM

Spent the last three days up at the CIC Hut for a general get together and chat about gear and products with Outdoor research folk and the Mountain Boot Co team. It was great to have the opportunity to chat with Alex, OR President and Jeannie, product development about future development of OR clothing for Scottish Winter use. We also got to see what is new with the MBC team with Scarpa and Grivel.

The climbing team present were Greg Boswell. Will Sim, Steve Lynch, Di Gilbert and myself. On Sunday we had some lovely weather and we all got a great day on the Hill. Steve Roberts, head of MBC took a wee fall on Sioux Wall and ended up on Steve Lynch's head!! A sprained ankle and a hole in Steve's helmet but hopefully no lasting damage. Greg took Jeannie out and ran up Gargoyle wall, thompsons route and Winter Cascades with plenty of time to spare to get down for tea! Will made a great choice avoiding the crowds and took Alex and Glyn up Comb Gulley buttress.

I took Chris out to play with Grivel's new Avatar axes. Amazing funky tools with magnesium heads. (see piccies below)Hot from their R&D dept and the only pair in the UK. We had a quick play on some ice at the bottom of Diana and than ran up Green gully. They are highly specialised axes and not really for Scottish mid grade stuff! However, they demonstrate Grivels willingness to keep pushing the boundaries. Had a look at Greg's Force axes which are really nice, (but extremley battered!!) and am looking forward to getting some new Grivel Master axes to play with soon.

On Monday the weather was awful so Greg and Will stayed in the hut and tried to eat all the excess food we had!!. Di and I headed out with Alex, Jeannie, Paul and Steve. I tried a mixed line between Abacus and Maelstrom (possibly Frozen Chosin?), but ended up rapping off after a pitch and a half as the weather was attrocious. A good test for the gear though and my Maximus jacket amazingly kept me dry!

Am frantically prepping for doing a MCofS chat this evening at the Clachaig.. perhaps see you there?

Chris trying out the most radical tools out there!