Fancy Dan...

17 March 2013

We had a quick hit on the hill on Sunday. The snow line was at 350m with new snow over wet grass, but this soon became deeper and more wintery with altitude. The rocks were well rimed and there was lots of accumulations of unstable snow. We even found Graupel pellets trapped below a thin icy top crust, scary, but avoidable...

 

4.30am - boots on...

9th-10th March 2013

Craig and I headed to the Ben on Friday night for a weekend of climbing.  We had big plans (Point 5 and Green), but the wind on Saturday morning was vicious and was repelling teams at the CIC hut. Some folk (brave or bold) headed in the direction of Minus 1 gully and Orion but with people (including me) getting blown off their feet we decided to travel deep into Corrie na Ciste to see what was “in” and “scope” out future routes.

The following morning with the wind abating slightly, but it was still Artic cold. We arrived first at the foot of Green Gully IV,4*** This "Cold Climbs" classic, is well climbed and justifies its popularity and status.

I led off up the first pitch with Craig following through. We swung leads with every pitch, interesting and engaging, but never overly difficult or tricky. The ice and neve was in great condition and the wind died as I led the final rope length to the plateau.

Most of the pics are of me as my camera got frostbite on route (sorry Craig).

We had a great weekend with fantastic climbing in a world class location...Scotland at its best.

More on the Simply Epic blog here.

Vanishing...

2 March 2013

Craig and I headed into SCNL on Saturday to see what was left after 2 days of thaw. We had intended climbing the right hand variation of Twisting Gully but with the warm temperatures on the walk in , we knew this was unlikely. I climbed the crux of the original route , which was in surprisingly good condition, Craig led through and I took the final pitch to the top.

We had the coire to ourselves so down climbed NC Gully to get onto Raeburn's Route on Summit Buttress. This gave us 3 pitches of mixed (more rock than ice on the upper sections) before we headed back down to our bags.

The Coire was eerily quiet apart from some teams on Dorsal and Paul from Peak Mountaineering looking at winter skills with his team.

All in a good day but we need a return to cold temperatures ASAP!

The full story here Craig on our Simply Epic website.