Outdoors: Scotland is the perfect playground for a fanatical mountain snowboarder

Published on Sunday 14 March 2010 10:31

Ice axes in hand, Paul Raistrick glances down at the snow-packed gully he has just climbed, alone, as he starts to slide downwards. Within seconds he's travelling fast on the 50 degree slope. The gully walls become a blur; he struggles for breath, and steels himself for a 15-metre sheer drop. He will need all his skill and plenty of luck to land without crashing into a granite buttress.

For most winter climbers this is the nightmare come true. For Paul, a mountain snowboarder, it's Nirvana. Now, with the Cairngorms wearing their finest winter coat in 30 years, he's in his element. And, from his home in Kincraig, the 37-year-old has his eye on a number of first descents.

An early snowboard convert, he is one of the few to tackle remote mountain gullies usually climbed by roped-up teams. His tally includes all of Ben Nevis's main gullies and Aladdin's Mirror Direct – a grade IV route in the Cairngorms' Coire an t-Sneachda (ice climbing grades stop at VI).

Since his tentative descents in the late 1980s he has clocked up numerous first descents in Scotland, on slopes of up to 55 degrees, as well as trips to arctic Norway and New Zealand. Paul, a hydrographic surveyor, first climbs the route (without a rope) while checking the snow for stability. On occasion he will approach from above, abseiling through any cornice. When all goes to plan the adrenalin rush is unforgettable.

"The snowboarding is very technical. You're not pulling tricks," he says. "You're more into a sense of survival. Potentially every turn is a life-threatening one. But from the point on the route when you know you're going to get down the adrenalin rush is fantastic. Though when you are really gripped at the top of the route the adrenalin isn't particularly pleasant. You're thinking 'oh my god. Is this a sensible thing to be doing?'."

He's had his share of near disasters. One descent saw him cartwheeling, literally, 200 metres through a boulder field on Braeriach as his snowboard acted like a springboard. "I pretty much fell the whole length of the corrie. I remember seeing things flying past and wondering how much further do I have to go before I get knocked out," he says.

A full-face helmet and body armour saved him that day. Two years ago, another incident in the Cairngorms nearly caused serious injury when Paul's wife Eilidh, an outdoor instructor, dislodged a boulder above him on Castlegates Gully by Loch A'an. Paul watched horrified as boulders rained down.

"I ended up being like a rabbit in headlights," he says. One pinned his ankle. It was a close shave.

Because of the dangers Paul switched from climbing to mountain running. He explains: "I don't know if we're like cats in that you can get another life but I feel that with all the near misses that I'm fortunate to be around at the moment. With running, the risks are less but the rewards are nearly as great."

He has set a number of records, including, in 2007, knocking 25 minutes off the four and a half hour record for the prestigious Cairngorm 4000s.

This August he will race for Scotland in the marathon length, high altitude, Pikes Peak race in Colorado.

For now, though, Paul is relishing the conditions. Top of his list is a Lochnagar route – the long, classic climb of the grade II Raeburn's Gully. He says: "It has length. It's aesthetic. It comes off very close to the summit of the mountain. It has all those classic pointers. It's definitely one of the top snowboarding lines in Scotland."

Another plan, earmarked for doing with a climbing friend, if the conditions were to come, is a sublime ski tour over the 4000 footers between Glen Nevis and Glenmore by Aviemore.

"It's looking unlikely, but never say never," says the man used to long odds.

&#149 This article was first published in The Scotsman, Saturday March 13, 2010