Day 4. Shut down by the weather...

Well after a rest day on day 3 due to being knackered and there being an unacceptable avalanche risk we headed out again only to be shut down by the weather. They couldn’t get the road up to the ski centre cleared. We’d sat around for over 2 hours hoping the snow would stop and they’d let us up but it didn’t happen. We didn’t fancy heading out later in the day as the weather reported more snow. A late start, heavy snow and a walk out in darkness just seemed to be asking for trouble.

As Claire and Leanne had come to join us we decided to check out some roadside icefalls we’d spotted the day before. We geared up and the girls joined us see what this whole ice climbing thing was all about. Then ensued a gearless nightmare of a mixed route with power-squeaking a plenty from me.

We geared up in deep snow and inspected the thin ice seam that I proposed to climb. At most it was 4 inches think, at least a few millimeters. There was turf and cracks and eyebrows of ice to use instead. The main thing I was worried about was finding some gear to place! I started up anyway and was quickly spat off after about 3 feet. I immediately jumped back on but with a different mindset. Instead of trying to climb this quickly I would just take my time and make each placement count. This did take a lot of time as the ice was bullet hard so chipping a decent placement for both axes and crampons was awkward. Eventually I got my mixed hook in a decent pick placement. This was more of a hook than a hacked out hole. I figured it looked good enough so I clipped it and moved on. I wasn’t like I had a choice either I couldn’t down climb it.

My ice pretty much ran out at this point. It was replaced with foot deep powder snow hiding any placements. I aimed for turf and cracks I could clean off and see, but I’m pretty sure I just brute forced my pick into some crud rock as I topped out. I got a decent sling around a spike and topped out. Man I was pumped, and scared. If I’d had to do that on a mountain route god knows what would have happened. I did have a massive smile on may face and was soaked through from powder snow. I opted to abseil back down instead of trying to find a decent belay. Being honest I was tired and wet through, fear had me a little gripped to.

Andy wasn’t up for hunting down more roadside mixed madness so we headed back to get warm and dry. Another day over, but my first taste of hard mixed climbing. I was happy and psyched for the next day.