Driving conditions to suitable winter climbing venues meant a change of plan for the Falkirk Community Trust Outdoors Introduction to Winter Climbing Course today. Catrin, Liam, Paul and I headed to Newtyle Quarry near Dunkeld. Once there we climbed a number of dry tooling routes including Groovilicious and Bonzai. These gave a chance to look at footwork, tool placements and movement, which will all help when Scottish mixed climbing.
![](http://www.climbnow.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/CN1-2-250x333.jpg)
We also covered abseiling including stacked abs, gear placement and removal and some general mountaineering skills. Not a usual winter intro day, but actually covering lots of the skills required. It snowed on and off at Newtyle during the day on a westerly and there was more snow with temperatures falling as we drove back.