We kicked off the season with Balliol's annual Christmas dinner in hall, and a few days later I was flying back to states.
Eager for snow and skiing, I was a bit disappointing to see Rapid City lacking in any significant snow. Still enough for snowball fights, however.
We checked out Rapid's new skating rink downtown, and I think this was the first time I've been skating since I was about 7 years old- good fun! Despite dad's expression, I think he enjoyed it too.
One of the best parts of being home is getting to see my grandparents, and we had a great Christmas dinner with them.
Towards the end of my holiday at home, Dad and I went to hike Red Gate White Gate, which I had never explored. With the fresh snow and sunshine it was a gorgeous hike and an area to which I plan to return.
I enjoyed the skating so much that I wanted to go again once I had returned to London. So, Chris and I spent an afternoon skating in London, followed by an evening watching a Cirque du Soleil performance. It was a wonderful day, and I think we did things in the right order. Had the Cirque performance come before the skating, I may have left the rink with some broken bones, after having attempted to recreate the Cirque acrobatics myself!
And not long after the Christmas season, Corinne and Kevin had their baby boy, Elijah. He's happy, healthy, and very lucky to have two amazing parents!
Chris and Andrew took the train up to Aviemore, Scotland, near the Cairngorm Mountains to do a Winter Skills course. I joined them a few days later, but only after experiencing a lovely dusting of snow in Oxford.
After a comfortable night spent on a sleeper train, Chris and I head out for Coire an t-sneachda and onto the summit of Cairn Gorm, the most prominent peak in the area and the 6th highest in the UK. Although it was a sunny day, the 80 mph gusts slowed our progress and gave Chris the opportunity to experience a bit of snow blindness!
Here's the summit of Cairn Gorm, near the weather station.
Andrew and I spent the next couple of days doing a Winter Mountaineering course,
then took a couple days to explore some of the routes around Coire an t-sneachda (below) on our own.
We made our way up a classic route called Jacob's Ladder, though the exit at the top was more difficult than anticipated and involved a couple falls onto soft snow before making it out. Here's Andrew on the lower half of Jacob's Ladder with me belaying. As you can see, this day was foggy, making it rather difficult to find any of the routes in the Coire.
The next day, we headed up Aladdin's Gulley. The climbing was great fun, but after a couple rough sections and some difficult route finding, we ran out of time and were forced to retreat back down the gulley.
