Eager...

18 November 2012

Craig and I met early and headed to Fort Bill with a plan to climb North East Buttress. 24hrs of snow made the Ben look wintery but it didn’t feel all that cold. As we passed a deserted CIC hut we decided that conditions were not really “in” so opted for Tower Ridge instead.

Getting to the bottom of the route involved some ”interesting” soloing up deeply snow covered un-bonded rock held in place with non-frozen turf.

Once on the ridge it was obvious that the snow had no base and conditions were tricky , but we pressed on till we were wading waist deep beneath the little tower. The wind got up, it started snowing, and both of us had that feeling you get before things go wrong. We bailed with a couple of abseils and picked our way back down to the hut.

We met Spike again (I think he is following me) who had climbed and boarded down no 4 gully-good effort.