A week of entertaining failures

It started on Tuesday when Di and I headed over to the north-west and Beinn Eighe. We’d planned on doing Kami-Kaze on the Far East Wall but were stopped well before we even reached the plateau when we both ran out of patience wallowing through deep unconsolidated snow up the side of Beinn Eighe.

Round two with Beinn Eighe was with Nick on Thursday which turned into a very amusing ‘mini-epic’. Blood, Sweat and Frozen Tears was the aim for the day and with slightly more consolidated snow and some old tracks to follow we even made it onto the summit plateau this time.

We found the abseil point ok and Nick headed down, 15 minutes later the rope was still tight and I could hear some muffed shouts emanating up from below. Wandering round to get a view of the wall from the top of Central Buttress we figured he was off route.  On a ledge but unable to find a decent anchor Nick decided he’d untie from the ropes, let me abseil down, find the correct anchor, pull the ropes, continue the descent and pick him up on the way past.

Sounded great... I found the well used abseil anchor, pulled the rack up from Nick, backed it up and started pulling the ropes. Then the inevitable happened, just as the end of the rope goes out of sight above me they jam.  

'Umm, this could get quite interesting' was an initial thought after shouting a few choice words up at the ropes to no avail.

So I was on an anchor with 30m or rope and Nick was somewhere below me on a ledge with no rope or rack, great! After a brief conflab the knife came out, brand new Tendon rope got chopped and I just made it down with the remaining rope to an anchor Nick had spotted to his right on the girdle ledge. The rope pulled this time and I managed to throw a rope to Nick who reacquainted himself with some caving techniques and grovelled over to me. 

As with all these sort of situations we found the light hearted approach worked best, ignore the seriousness and have a good laugh about it (it’s blood, sweat and frozen tears not bagels, must have had food on the mind...):

We tied the rope off and abseiled into West Central Gully, down climbed this and then slogged back up Fuselage Gully to our kit and retrieved the stuck rope from the top. Didn't like leaving a rope littering the crag but Nick managed to get back across on Saturday to do the route and retrieve what we’d left. 

Trying (and failing...) to be artistic with ice tools and the Lancaster 

wreckage in Fuselage Gully

Roll on Saturday and one last attempt to grab a winter route. Andy Sharp and I made an exhausting post holing approach to Shelterstone to climb Citadel which we thought might just have been in condition. Unfortunately it looked from the approach that the top was probably going to be black but we started up with open minds to see what we found. 

Andy starting up the second pitch of Citadel

After the lower crux, which is really fun steep climbing on bomber hooks and torques, it was pretty obvious the meltdown had set in, water was running down the rocks everywhere and turf wasn’t exactly frozen anymore. Yes there was snow on the ledges but it was far from wintry enough to justify continuing up the summer line. Decision made Andy quickly took us out via the top of Sticil Face in a monster 120m pitch and we started the final post holing mission back across the plateau.

Creag Meagaidh conditions

Andy Townsend and I were over on Creag Meagaidh today for more guiding practise and conditions were looking fairly good. We climbed The Wand which had quite a nasty egg shell layer of ice over it in places but was still good climbing. After topping out we descended via the Window and then headed up The Pumpkin which is in great condition at the moment.  Other Andy and Paul also climbed Diadem which was in good condition, more neve than ice though.

The cornices above these two routes were fairly small but anything climbers right of Cinderella is threatened by quite a large cornice that has already sunk leaving a crevasse behind it and looking quite unstable.

Creag Meagaidh under blue sky's today 

 Andy Townsend on The Wand

 Paul following Andy Nelson up Diadem 

(there's a much easier start in keeping with the grade to the right)

Very unstable looking cornices

Good ice on the Ben

For a bit of a change of scenery on Saturday I changed the East for the West and headed up to the Ben with Paul to get a few pitches of ice in.  We ended up climbing the starting pitches of Hadrian's Wall Direct and the Sickle.  The ice was pretty good on both routes for tool placements but quite a bit of luck digging in the right spot was required for good ice screw placements.  We climbed the Sickle in two long 60m pitches to the easier ground before abseiling back down, the second pitch giving a really good climbing up the corner.  Else where we saw teams on Point Five which looked good and although no one was on it Orion Face looked good too.

Earlier in the week Cat and I had been navigating around the Cairngorm plateau in preparation for her Winter ML which starts tomorrow, and much needed practise for me.  From what we saw Hell's Lum was very icy but the other crags in the Loch Avon basin looked pretty black, although some friends reported good conditions on Route Major over at Carn Etchachan and that the Sticil Face on Shelter Stone looked to have 'some' ice on the crux corner but not as fat as normal.  Snow condition dependant I'm hopefully heading over that way tomorrow so I'll have some more up to date condition info.

 Climbers on Point Five

 Paul starting up the Sickle

  

Fun days out in Corie An T-Sneachda

A few photo's from a fun last few days out getting to know lots of the classic grade IV's and V's in Corie An T-Sneachda.  The buttresses were looking pretty black over the weekend but took on a much more wintry look on Monday when the latest snow fell.  This snow fell with a lot of wind which has given a very high avalanche danger, climbing on the Mess of Pottage we found wind slab build up everywhere even on the route where we triggered a number of small slides.

 (photo - Andy Townsend)

 (photo - Andy Townsend)

lots of unintentional navigation practise over the last few days...

The Needle

The plan had been to have a leisurely start and head in to the Corries for a quick hit on Saturday, getting Nick back for his talk at the Lodge in good time.  Simple plans are never the most exciting so it only took one beer, a photo of Shelter Stone looking fairly white and a promise we'd be back at the car by 7.00 in the evening for plans to change to an earlier start for a look at the Needle (VIII 8, 260m ****).  After a slight detour (must remember to get the compass out sooner next time...), accidentally throwing the map away down the Goat track and a brief loss of psyche in the unexpected morning rain a quick game of paper-rock-scissor decided who grabbed the rack and I set off up the first pitch a bit later than planned at 9.30.  A long 60 meters following a fun turfy grove brought us onto the terrace where you join the original summer route and follow this for the rest of the way.  

Nick quickly dispatched another long technical pitch and what turned out to be the crux, a steep flake line with a balancy traverse onto a narrow ledge to the final thin and pumpy moves up a bulging crack.  The next pitch was just brilliant, a ramp line lead round the corner to the start of the 'crack for thin fingers' pitch, a dream description for a winter pitch!  A couple of thin moves with a slightly worrying ledge to hit below gained the crack and great moves on bomber hooks and torques to a tricky move left to a ledge, one of the best winter pitches I've ever done.  

Reading the guide book after I should probably have stepped right instead of left here but either way it worked out and Nick was soon belayed under the main feature of the route, the Needle chimney.  A long move off a very helpful chock stone to a small hook got me established in the offwidth before a proper grovel got me to the top and the last 20m of easy ground to the plateau.  Nick emerged onto the plateau grinning and with just enough time left to get back, make some food and drink a well deserved pint before his lecture.  It was an awesome route, long, sustained, in an amazing situation and great to be out climbing with Nick again.

Else where in the Loch Avon area Carn Etchachan was plastered with a number of team on various routes.  I'm not too sure if Sticil Face had any ice on it but we saw a team in that arean and another on The Citadel.  Hell's Lum was quite busy and the Chancer looked like it might be close to touching.

Hell's Lum on Saturday 

 
Starting up the first pitch of the Winter Needle (photo - Nick Bullock)

 Nick exiting the 'crack for thin fingers' pitch

 Pitch 4 which lead to the base of the chimney and final pitch

 Looking up the final pitch

Getting established in the offwidth final pitch  (photo - Nick Bullock)

 A happy Bullock emerging onto the plateau

 Busy day on Carn Etchachan

Loch Avon Basin and Cairngorm Conditions

We headed over to the Cairngorms on Wednesday morning for navigation practise up on Cairngorm plateau and a days climbing on Thursday.  After a prolonged coffee and bacon butty stop in Aviemore we wandered up to Coire an Sneachda and up onto the Cairngorm plateau via Fiacaill Ridge.  Conditions on the plateau were great for walking around on with firm snow everywhere and after visiting various practise navigation point we ended up on the top of Ben Macdui to be treated with an amazing brocken spectre.  Our plan of getting some night nav in was curtailed by a stunning full moon that lit everywhere up like day light...

On Thursday Derek and I headed over to the Loch Avon basin, originally we’d wanted to go and do Sticil Face on Shelter Stone although this aspect of the Shelter Stone was very white (the steeper lines are definitely black) the ice on the crux corner wasn’t there.  We opted for Guillotine on Carn Etchachan, looking across at it we’d been a bit dubious about whether it was white enough to be in condition but once on it was fine and gave three great pitches of climbing.  The atmospheric second (or third if you do it in four) pitch giving the route it’s name as you feel like you’re tunnelling into the mountain with the ‘guillotine’ a massive blade of rock, hanging above you followed by a short crux pitch to finish off.  We saw another team at the top that had climbed Scorpion and reported good conditions with a spicy top pitch and another pair starting up Route Major which looked in good condition too.

 

Elsewhere in the Loch Avon basin Hell’s Lum looked to be quite icy although The Chancre wasn’t touching down.  The Cascade was forming but the start was very thin and had melted out by the end of the day, the rest of Stag Rocks was very black.  A few photo’s of the crags below.

Yesterday we went out with Blair to pick his brains whilst he was doing his avalanche forecast for the SAIS in Creag Meagaidh.  The low cloud meant we didn’t get a good look at the crags to see what ice had survived the thaw but we did see a team starting up South Post Direct and one on The Pumpkin.  

Derek on the first pitch of Guillotine

 Climbers returning from Hell's Lum