If You Go Down To the Woods Today

Today we took a group mountain biking in the tiny mountains and trails of Haldon Forest just outside Exeter. Its an awesome location with something for everyone: wide open trails; single track with switchbacks, berms and whoops to a pretty serious downhill section for the brave/stupid! The scenery is jaw dropping with views over Exeter to the North and Dawlish to the South. The group had a fantastic time and left vowing to come back for some more mud spattered thrills.

We Love Big Dumps!

Went skiing on Dartmooor on Sunday......Awesome; there was so much snow that it could have been on top of Brieriach in the Cairngorms! We hiked in through knee deep drifts to the top of one of the tors then picked a line back down through the rocks for about a kilometre. We're now closely watching the forecast as its due to snow again and if it does we'll be there!

The Good Old Days

This weeks cold snap has plunged us deeper into the coldest winter we have had for over 30 years with the heaviest snowfall in the UK for over 2 decades. But it only seems so extreme because we are not used to it due to the effect on our climate from global warming. Weather like this used happen about once every 5 years but now only happens once every 20! Here at Four Points Adventure we love extreme weather so we will be doing everything we can to combat global warming to help our climate get back to the good old days of regular extreme weather instead of having to wait 20 years to be able to climb ice falls on Dartmoor or go skiing in Cornwall.

Snow Chasers

After watching the weather reports avidly for days we were at last rewarded with heavy snowfall over Cornwall and Devon. We set set off chasing the best snow at 6 am with our skis, snowboards and shovels, travelling through blizzard conditions to Dartmoor; but the snow here was too sparse so we chased the clouds South again finding 15 cm of snow in the South West's newest skiing Mecca: Milton Abbot. After several runs we moved on to the slopes of Launceston where we made fresh tracks before finding the best snow of the day in a field by the A30 on Bodmin Moor.

Summers coming

Got the paperwork out of the way early so that we could go and recce coasteering locations in preparation for the coming season. After months spent poring over maps looking for suitable locations in the gloomy winter light today the sun shone bright turning our thoughts to summer, so we ditched the office and headed to the coast.

Time To Go Home

We awoke to oodles of the white stuff....typical, just as were leaving it starts to snow. In reality all this snow would only be good for one thing: skiing, so it’s better that it came today. Despite high winds the course was a success with 2 grade I gullies, 2 grade II gullies, and one grade II ridge climbed. If you fancy some of this contact us for dates of our next course in February.

Fiacall Ridge

In an effort to avoid the crowds thronging their way to Coire an t-Sneachda we headed up Fiacall Ridge. We avoided the crux due to the gusting wind and made our way up on to the plateau just off the crest. As you can see from the video it was a stunning day on top and the group thoroughly enjoyed the awesome conditions. We descended by the goat track which wasn’t without it it’s excitement in the conditions.

Nice On Top

Today we walked into Lochnagar to tackle Raeburn’s Gully. Conditions were better than in the Cairn Gorm area with slightly less wind. The group were pretty blown away by the awesome amphitheatre of Lochnagar with its frozen Lochan especially as we had what must be one of Scotland’s premier climbing venues all to our selves! As you can see from the video by the time we topped out conditions had worsened, the wind had picked up and the walk back to the car was in stark contrast to the serene stillness we had found in the gully.

A Halcyon Day

Today was a rest day as the last two days were pretty physically and mentally demanding and the weather was not conducive to learning with winds gusting to 80mph. We also took the opportunity to move to the eastern side of the Cairngorms to Lochnagar in an effort to find more favourable conditions.

A Quality Mountain Day

We awoke to a snow covered bothy with a couple of inches of fresh all round. After porridge we headed up to Gharb Choire Dhaidh where we climbed Twilight Gully on perfect hard snow. There was no cornice at the top and as we topped out the sun came out and the sky cleared, a perfect end to the courses first named route. We hacked back thorugh the occasional snow cloud until it cleared on our descent back in to the Lairig affording us awesome views of Cairn Lochan and Rothiemurchus forest and Loch Morlich down in the valley.