For the second day of lead rock climbing coaching with Kate and Johan we were back at Poldubh. We started on Clapham Junction, a steep, awkward, polished, technical climb with excellent protection. It was still wet too, especially the finger lock cracks. This route was not chosen to be easy, in fact it was chosen because it would be very hard to climb and easy to fall off (and safe enough). Kate did an excellent job and really pushed herself. She placed excellent protection and committed to the climbing before taking a lead fall from above the protection. Hopefully Kate will use this experience to give her confidence on climbs she leads in the future. Having faith in your protection is key to lead climbing.

The rain showers did not clear very quickly so we went to The Gutter and climbed this in three pitches before abseiling off. We did a practice SPA type rescue, a lead of Tear on SW Buttress and finally I led us up Resurrection. Johan now has a good idea of how to place protection and lead trad climbs. She will make the transition from sport climbing very well and settle quickly into Scottish climbing.

Back with students from West Highland College in Glen Nevis I was teaching lead rock climbing again yesterday. Kate has done a lot of climbing before and wants to push her grade while Johan has done a lot of climbing on sport routes but nothing using traditional protection. The rain surrounded us for a few hours in the morning without quite reaching us so we enjoyed some dry rock to start off with. We were at Hangover Buttress which has a couple of climbs that are well sheltered from the rain so even when the rain got to us we were dry for a while. The rain did arrive in the end though and we enjoyed the super slippy mica schist in the wet! If you go rock climbing in Scotland you need to be prepared for anything!

For the second day of lead coaching with Bala'sz and Jenny we went to Buachaille Etive Mor to climb the uber classic Agag's Groove. This was to give the guys a feel for the bigger climbs with a much bigger feel. We drove out of the valley mist and up the glen into fantastic sunshine so we knew we were onto a great day. We used the bottom section of Curved Ridge to go over some Alpine moving together on a rope skills before setting off up the climb. This we did simulating Jenny and Bala'sz leading but with me going up each pitch first to provide a rope from above. They placed their own protection and did their own belaying all the way and the top rope was quite loose to provide a little of the leading sensation!

Few places are better for rock climbing in the sunshine than Rannoch Wall. We had a wonderful time climbing up, soaking up the warm sun, before abseiling down January Jigsaw. There were anchor ropes in places for this making it a bit easier and these often get tidied away at the end of the summer. It turned into a very sociable day with a few other climbers around to chat with. It was great to see a few people out enjoying the climbing, the weather and just being out in the hills.