What is the Mountain Diary?
This blog space will serve a few purposes for me. First and foremost, it will be a platform for me to journal and remember what (hopefully cool) things I did while I was young enough to do them, second as a space for me to put down my thoughts on gear and alpine techniques that I pick up and figure useful. And lastly, for anyone interested to see what I'm up to (mainly family).
Who am I and why should you care?
You probably shouldn't, but if you do, I am a Omani-born Scot/Thai, raised in Texas, made in Scotland and as of writing, currently residing in Colorado. Like most people, my transition into outdoor activities/mountain sports began over COVID, where I was bored senseless into going on a hike. Some maniac now-friends of mine got me into rock-climbing and my wallet has suffered ever since. This slippery-slope of adrenaline seeking has taken me from the extremes of winter climbing in the Scottish Highlands to alpine climbing on the Mont Blanc massif. With decent mountain experience under my belt, I have arrived in Aspen to teach unsuspecting children how to ski.
What have I been up to?
Up to this point, all of my hiking/climbing/mountaineering has been in Scotland. I started logging my "QMD"s or quality mountain days in my final year of uni in hopes for an unsuccessful bid at becoming a Mountain Leader. I've logged about 10 winter days out in Scotland of both winter climbing and mountaineering routes mainly around Ben Nevis and Coire an t-Sneachda. My favorite routes have to be the Aonach Eagach traverse and Good Friday Climb on the Ben. I've kind of forgotten what I did in the Alps exactly but my favorite routes were the Aiguilles Marbres traverse, Cosmiques Arete and having a bit of an epic on Aiguille du Peigne.
What do I hope to do?
Aspen, Colorado isn't quite the mountaineering/alpinist paradise that Chamonix is, nor the temple of mixed climbing like the Scottish Highlands. Skiing is what makes this town great and so that is what I hope to do. While I'm set to get in tons of days skiing on-piste, what's getting me excited out here are the massive 14,000 ft mountains on my backdoor and the vast alpine expanse that surrounds the area. One thing I've always wanted to do in Scotland was backcountry touring but the snow pack was too shite for any of that so I put a raincheck on the whole idea. Now that I'm somewhere with solid snow cover I'm psyched to get cracking. With this in mind, I'm not daft. Backcountry is pretty dangerous in these areas with main risks being the infamous avalanche. I hope to get in some training courses so I can move through the mountains here safely and bag some big 14er summits!
