Our intrepid team managed to file four daily reports from the 2009 international meet before excitement overtook them. Just what did happen on day 5 and 6...?

Day 1
Monday is the first full day of the BMC International Meet and, as expected, both hosts and guests were eager to get out into the hills. As it was the first day's climbing most people went to the Northern Corries and did classic climbs, a few people also went to Hell's Lum. Generally the temperatures are above freezing and the snow that is around lower down is melting. But everyone managed to get on the hill and get something done. There were plenty of smiling faces at the end of the day as everyone enjoyed themselves. In the late afternoon a fun dry tooling competition was organised on the tower in the Glenmore Lodge car park. Routes were set by Andy Turner and there were some awesome diplays of climbing from guests and hosts alike. The top spot went to Pavel Vritik from the Czech Republic. Prizes courtesy of DMM and Rab. In the evening Zoe Hart from USA gave a highly entertaining talk Stories from an Alpine Princess.

Day 2
The day started early, very early - 5am in fact - with some teams wanting to make their first trips to Ben Nevis to search out ice on the higher routes there. Although it is a little warm low down and conditions are not ideal, many routes were climbed, including: Good Friday Climb, Tower Ridge, Tower Scoop, Comb Gully, Green Gully, Glover's Chimney, Indicator Wall, Smith's Route, among others. Additionally, Simon Richardson and Zoe Hart (USA) did a new two pitch route appropriately named The Alpine Princess (IV, 4). Other teams went to the Northen Corries, Hell's Lum, Stag Rocks, doing classic routes. Just before dinner a couple of rather special visitors popped by for a chat: Erwan Le Lann and Ueli Steck! from the petzl team . Ueli is currently very well known following his high profile solos of major routes on Alpine north faces. In the evening Pavel Vritic from the Czech Republic showed his film about new climbing in the high Tatra.

Day 3
Wednesday dawned fine but with high winds - gusting up to 90mph! It was very windy in the Northern Corries but some teams braved the weather and had a really good day. Some teams decided to opt for a dry-tooling day instead and went to Birnham. Routes done included Fast and Furious, Too Fast Too Furious, Roofilicious, Va Va Vroom, Happy Hooker, Groovilicious and Bonzai.It was the first day at the meet for our guests from India and Col. HS Chauhan, the Secretary of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation did his first Munro - Bynack Mor - in a snow storm and bitter gusting winds. Once again Ben Nevis saw numerous teams climbing the classics such as Tower Scoop, Glover's Chimney, Smith's Route, Central Gully Right Hand amongst others.The Ben also saw another three-pitch new route from Zoe Hart (USA), Ian Parnell, Simon Richardson and Maxine Turgeon (Canada) named Big Wednesday (VI, 6). In the evening the Petzl Team joined us to watch Dave MacLeod's excellent illustrated presentation called Defenders of the Faith.

Day 4:
Today, Thursday, freezing levels were high, cloud levels were low, and winds were gusting strongly, but teams were  still well up for it.Teams continued to hill walk aound various trails around the Cairngorms.Classics were climbed in the Northern Corries.Even though the condtions on the walk in were very wet,  routes were climbed on the Ben today, including Darth Vader VII, 8 Babylon VII, 7, and multiple ascents of Thompsons Route, Glovers Chimney and Comb Gully Buttress. It was a very wet group that staggered back into Glenmore Lodge this evening! In the evening we were treated to two magnificent illustrated presentations from our Japanese guests. Kei Taniguchi told us about her audacious first ascent of the much admired and sought after South East Face of Kamet.  She called the route Samurai Direct.. Asia Piolet D'Or winner, Yusuke Sato,  gave an awesome presentaion about the amazing first ascent of the North Face of Kalanka.

Read the report of the 2009 International Meet
What's it like being a host on the international winter meet? Find out here. 

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