was passionate; his violent rages and his excited boyish exhilaration in the prospect of a trip to the Alps, a reunion with old friends, a new climb...

In February he had done his first hard ice climb, Twisting Gully in Glen Coe:

"The frost last night made an ice climb possible today, so we were up at seven to find that there was not a cloud in the sky - a perfect morning ... long slog up to Coire nan Lochan, where we came into brilliant sunshine...

"Cut our way up Twisting Gully ... the last few feet bulged nastily but I was able to get one glove frozen to an icicle underneath the bulge and cut some little nicks above with the gully axe - I couldn't have done the pitch without it. Previously Gordon [Parish] had cut the steps for me for about fifteen feet, but even then I spent an hour and a half on it.

"... we could see the sunshine above and wanted to get up into it! Turned the doubtfully dangerous cornice on the left by a nice little arête. Three and a half hours - a jolly good climb.

"... on up to Bidean - down and up wizard snow arêtes which were glistening in the sunshine. Photos.

"Along the main ridge to Sgurr Sgreamhach and down (step cutting) on to Beinn Fhada ... sun going down and clouding over -earlier we had seen all the mountains standing up white above the blue haze.

"... Three miles back along the road to Lagangarbh, watching the moon and stars getting ever brighter, whilst the ground about us creaked with more and more frost. (I was surprised how tired we felt all at once - myself particularly tired. Must put it down to the long and concentrated output of energy needed to climb difficult ice - standing in vibrams on inch-wide ice notches is both physically and mentally wearing.)"*

He was in good form that day: superbly fit after two weeks as instructor on the first winter mountain rescue course in the Cairngorms. Air Ministry had gone one better than instituting an annual summer course; in addition a winter course was to be held every year from 1952 onwards. Summer courses for rock climbing were held mainly in Snowdonia, sometimes in the Lake District. The winter courses were for snow and ice climbing, and for winter mountaineering in general. At first the Cairngorms were used as a base, but eventually the centre was established at Glen Nevis youth hostel.

When the summer course started at Ogwen in 1952 I managed to get a day off and went round full of good intentions, which failed:

"... Gwen hitched round, to my surprise, and offered to instruct a pupil. As she was climbing in bare feet as usual, and the pupil was in tricounis, not a great deal could be learnt about footwork..."

I hadn't done a great deal of climbing in the last few years. I had done no hard routes at all. But Lees could be very understanding. Instead of being censorious, he taught me to climb in nails. In the old days when I'd done hard routes, I had done them barefooted. When the winter came I stopped rock-climbing. I didn't like vibrams and I couldn't climb in nails. Mountain rescue, and Lees in particular, were great exponents of nails. I got away with bare feet during my first Continue to Page 5