Aonach Mor...

Well If you can do it in the Alps why can't you do it in Britian. I'm talking about taking a cable car and chairtlift most of the way up. I can see why Aonach Mor wasn't really developed until the cable car access was established, it would have been a long walk for some ~120 m routes. Now of course its gets the nickname "Stanage on Ice" due to it's easy access and shorter routes. I'm not trying to take away from this place because it's still a winter crag quite high up, you've still got bad weather, cornices, avalanche slopes and all the other fun to deal with.

Taking a chairlift was an experience enough. Me and Andy had never been on one before, so after some brief instructions from Toaf on how to get on and off, on we jumped and we're carried upwards. Getting off appears to be a co-ordinated run so you don't crash into an ice axe sticking off a pack or fall over and get whacked by the chairlift! We managed it fine and than started on the steep walk up to the top of Aonach Mor. I ran off eager as ever trying to keep pace with Uncle Rob. He's a bit of a speed daemon as it is, but he was only going walking so had a superlight pack. As we gained hit good scottish winter conditons starting with about 10/20 metre visibility. There's a little shed up there that the Ski centre use for casulties and stuff which is where we geared up. We could even leave our bags up there and come back to them between each climbing. This all seemed a little too easy, cable cars up, short routes, no packs there must be a catch. We there was one catch, you had to be at ready for the last cable car at 1700. There was also another catch that we would find out later.

So off we trotted to find "Easy Gully" to abseil in on. This was my first time rapping in on a snow bollard. It wasn't actually that scary, but going over a cornice was!. I skipped my feet off and fell into the wall covering myself in snow and ice, not a good start! Me and Stewie promptly walked off to find the base of our routes. Stewie was heading for Tyhoon grade IV,5 and climbing with Ian. Me, Toaf and Andy were climbing together and we where heading for White Shark (IV,4) or Tunnel Vision (III). We found what looked like White Shark and set about climbing it. Andy whacked my on belay and I set off up my first pitch of the week.

I'll point out now that I'm sporting new mono-point crampons (G14's) and a pair of Leashless DMM Fly's connected to me with some scratch built landyards made of elastic and camp nano 'biner's (wow how many products did I advertise there!). I've tried the monopoints before and lover them. So far thier ability to deal with mixed climbing whilst still being excellent on ice and impressed. I've been determined to give leashless ago since I've read about it, but instead of forking out for a new set of tools I've just add pinky rests to my flys. I just had to find out how they'd perform now.

Off I set up a about a grade 4 pitch of ice. It was pretty nice climbing with a steep step then a bit of crappy snow then a final little pitch before the belay (I didn't know that at the time). I'd heard no call of half way and had no idea how much rope I'd run out. I was in my own little world of ice climbing happiness...

...this little world of ice climbing happiness was tugged back into reality in the middle of the steepest section of ice I've been on, as I'd run out of rope. A lot of yelling later and toad unclipping from the belay and him and Andy climb up the snow slope to give me more slack I topped out on the belay ledge and set about testing the pegs and tat there. I brought Andy and Toaf up together.

Toaf was seconding me first and when he came to the steep ice section he baulked at it. I felt immmediatly bad because I knew I'd be fine on this, but I also knew that Toaf would have been a little nervous. I didn't didn't know that this pitch would have been so steep, but if I had I'd have never started up it with Toaf. I thought about backing off from the tat. Toaf climbed up the steep ice well. I mean his technique was spot on, his foot placements good and his axe placements sound and deep without removing all the ice. I've never seen someone so scared in my life though. He relaxed when he clipped into the belay and Andy started up. I mean this was suposed to be an easy first day!!!

We survey the next pitch. It was just as steep and looked like a hard top out onto the snow above so I took it. I actually slipped off as I downclimbed from the belay (blown the onsight!) and we laughed about pulling the ropes and starting again ground up. Ethical debates seem to matter less in a whiteout. I still coulding see the top, but I sent the steep section well and podded up the snow. Now this really is my first real winter season so I hadn't dealt with a cornice yet. We'd discussed cornice tactics the night before and I'd come to the conclusion that I should avoid at all costs. Well I followed this snow slope up and a vauge line of footprints to the base of a massive 15ft cornice! What the bloody hell was I suposed to do? It seemed to be composed of sugary crude snow too. Tunnelling through seemed my only option until I unearthed a belay, of sorts.

Well clearly someone had done the same thing as me, but they'd screwed, based or somehow places an icescrew in a munge filled crack and equalised it against a snowshovel buried to the hilt. This was suposed to be an easy day! I stoop around undecided about what to do for a while, I couldn't traverse under it as I was hemmed in by to steep rock walls and I couldn't dig through it. In the end I rappelled back down watching the shovel and screw bend in thier placements. I think I must have arrived back at the belay white as a sheet (are as white as snow!). We rigged another abseil back down to the floor and set finding a route to get out on.

Remember when I said we had to get back by 5 for the last cable car, well it seemed the pressure was on. I ran up Tunnel Vision (grade III) and belayed below the best pitch on the route (I'd already fed my rat). Andy took this and climbing in interesting style, seeming to make progression upwards by having a go at me. I took none of this to heart and just put it down to leading stress. Andy dissappeared for ages. Time was really starting to tick on aswell. Toaf reconned, based on last years descent, that it would take about 1hr 30mins to descend to the cable car. Time was ticking away...

...Andy couldn't make the top. The ropes were not long enough (damn my 50 metre ropes!). He belayed me up first and I set about delaing with the cornice while he brought up Toaf. Thankfully this was ok and I brought up Andy and then Toaf. A hurried bout of packing then we were off, running! Andy had set off first as he's not as fast on his feet. We had 1 hour to get down, in ankle deep snow.

It seems that you can cover snowy ground pretty quickly when your up against a 3 hour walk back if your late. We made it with time to spare infact, but running had killed my knees and shoulders. It didn't matter as we'd had an awesome first day. We chilled out in the Sauna and swimming pool on the way home before a massive meal and preparation for the next day...