Final day in Scotland

Our final day in Scotland we had decided to take it easy with a simple route in t-scneadha. We chose Fiacall Buttress (grade II,3). The walk in to the coire was harder than normal, probably because of day before (Creag Meagaidh) and we got paced by what seemed like a million people. Had we realised how many people would be in the coire today, I guess we'd have probably walked to Lochain instead but a whiteout prevailed and we arrived at Fiacall Buttress just in time to start queing for a route.

queuing!!!

We'd chosen to do Fiacall Buttress mainly because it was easy but everyone we'd spoken too agreed that it was a pretty good route. After queing for a while we manged to get going and I took the first pitch. It wasn't too bad but harder than I was expecting for grade II. I ended up stuck behind the party infront waiting for a belay until I snuck in a little hex. The guy watching me was impressed whe I hammered the thing home cutting through all the verglas along the inside of the crack. Least now I could start belaying Andy up.

I was also getting cold. It wasn't like I was wildly exposed or anything but it was the coldest day I'd been out for and I'd neglected to wear a helly or thermal trousers (favouring a faster, lighter and less sweaty walk-in). I should have hunkered down in my belay jacket much sooner than I did but I thought we'd move quicker. I was wrong.

Andy arrived, we swapped gear, got overtaken by another party, who apolgised profusley (they'd bailed off thier objective and onto our route) and he set off, slowed by the guy seconding in front of him. I finally put my belay jacket on but I was too cold. I bet I was a right sight hanging from my belay, doing leg raises and leg lifts to generate heat! Eventually a few tugs came at my waist and the call of safe floated down. I could get moving.

Of course we were still stuck behind the party infront. I arrived shivering. Andy started to say "why don't you put on your belay ja...." only to realised I already had it on. "I've nothing left in my pack" I said and shivered dutifully. Instead we cracked out the flasks as we where held up anyway. It gave us a chance to watch the party infront deal with the crux and talk to his belayer. I got moving eventually and dealt with said crux. It was a slight overhang you turned on the left and it rocked. It was hard enough to make you think but easy enough be enjoyable. 

The rest of the route was easy and I bumbled on to the top to belay above the cloud. With Andy joined me and we sat around drinking tea and chilling out before heaing down to do another route. This wasn't going to be because the crowds were not heaving. Instead content with our achievments we nipped back to the MRT box, donned our walking poles and set off plodding out. A fine day to end on.

Andy sporting one of the many hats his mother had made on the final walk out

A spot of bouldering in the peak

Two days, two sets of boulders. Went to Burbage south for the first time on a very chilly day and didn't really get much done other than a few 6a routes (namely the Tiger) but had a nice day out. Then we to Newstone and had a crack at Charlie's Overhang (as a highball). I didn't managed it but it think it was more because I couldn't commit to the move rather than being not capable of it. I also had a serious go at the ripple and couldn't do it (kept falling off the last move) but it's ok because it's something I can go back and do. I was happy with my bouldering seeing as I've been pretty much concentrating on ice and winter for the past 2 months

A long day out...

You may remember last year the farsical exploits I had when I decided to go to Creag Meaghaidh. Well since then I've actually really wanted to get back to the place, not because I'd been swooning over the guidebook all year, but because it had beaten me before the walk-in had even started! To be perfectly honest it wasn't until Andy brought up going to Meaghaidh that I did pick up the guidebook and start searching for decent routes in our grade. So this is what happened...

0630: I lie in wait in bed for the alarm to go off. I could get up, but I'm stubborn and will enjoy my 10 minutes of lying still before I have to start moving. I'm feeling the aftereffects of a late night and a few beers on Hogmaney (New Year to everyone else). 

0800: I'm behind the wheel. Andy is groggily sat next to me.We've got string quartet covers of rocksongs playing the the car at full blast while we drive through the morning sun. 


0845: We refuse to get out of the car and start walking. It's cold, we're tired and we're hungover. Creag Meaghaidh is a long walk and we can't be arse. I think we sat there for a while we decided that maybe starting the year off bailing on a day out because of a self-inflicted hangover wasn't the greatest omen ever, at least I did anyway. We got out of the car and stay out this time.


And that's probably the last time I looked at my watch, that I can remember at least. I mean that honestly, we had enough food, water and gear for about 24 hours outdoor and short of an epic we'd be back at the car eventually. I after nearly a week of winter routing I think we getting pretty fit, or just acustomed to it. My shoulders didn't ache from my sack, my arms didn't ache from my poles and for all that was said to us about the walk in to Creag Meaghaidh, it wasn't that bad. Infact it was just nice walk. 


My first full view of the cliff is one thats imprinted on my brain. It just dominates the end of the valley. Masive towering cliffs that make Lliwedd in wales look like a small jumbled footnote. I don't think it helped but the recent thaw had stripped the faces of any snow and hoare frost leaving the long gullies of the post face as white streaks up the black wall. Even this far away I could make out several long ice pitches, ready for the taking. As the soonest opportunity I got out the guide book and checked were our original route was (Staghorn Gully, grade III). I eventualy fond it and was dissappointed. I'm sure Staghorn Gully is a good route, but I now only had eye's for one of the post face routes. I checked them over and found the easiest (South Post Direct, grade V,4) which also happened to look the best of all the routes. I knew andy would take some convincing...


Andy was ready to listen to my suggestion that we abandon the easier route in favour of a really hard, long adventure. He err'd and um'd and then his face broke into a nervous smile as he accepted the challenge. I was now so psyched. And back to walking we went, it was still a distance to reach the base of the route. We had a little discussion about leaving the bags and I wanted to carry them, just incase we finished in darkness than we'd be able to just walk off instead of searching round for the bags. 


The first pitch fell to me and it was very close to being the last pitch of the day. Nothing other than my head would have stopped us though. I jumped straight on the ice and immediatly little doubts started flickering in my mind. The ice was steep going on vertical for a short section. I still carried on climbing, placing screw after screw until I realised that I was using them up too quick and I wouldn't have enough for the pitch. I slowed down my screw placement and started concentrating on good ice climbing technique, trying to move as quickly as I could and read the ice for the easiest passage but by now my calves were burning and my mind was screaming at me. I was a little harder than I was expecting, to say the least but I knew I couldn't bail. I think pride forced me to carry on. 


I finished the pitch, running it out a long way from my last screw as I'd only one left and decided to keep it just incase I needed to bail. The last little bit was easy enough to remind me why I enjoyed ice climbing. I finished the pitch, banged in a peg and clipped a nut. All I wanted to do was scream with joy and happiness. Grade V ice! Hell year. It's not often you achieve your aim for the year on the first day! This had gone from type 2 to type 1 fun in seconds. Andy came up the pitch while we got bombarded with ice from the team above. I think he was definatly experiencing some type 2 fun at that point. He lead off up the 100metre or so snow couloir with the intention of us moving together to the next ice pitch. 


The next steep ice pitch was mine as well (all the steep ice was). Andy had kept himself off to one side, to avoid falling ice from both me and the party above us. This pitch was infact pretty easy (when compared to the last) and was only a  short steep section before the angle relented and I could move a bit quicker. I tried to run it out to the stance above me, but was short by about 5 metres so had downclimb to my last piece of gear and belay there. This probably cost us quite abit of time. Andy seconded and led off to the stance I couldn't reach before and we stopped for the first time that climb to take on a little tea and food. 

With warm vimto and some form of palatable high energy snack in my gut I comtemplated the next pitch. I didn't look too long, but I knew it curved off near the top so there wa plenty of ice I couldn't see. Either way we didn't have much choice. I'd been watching the weather all day and keeping a mental note of how dark it was getting. I knew deep down that we wouldn't be finishing this climb without or headtorches on. Looking back I should have put it on then, but thought I had enough time to complete the pitch. I'd also calculated in my head that it would be much much more hassle to actually bail off the route and abseil back down, rather than just finish. This was the last hard pitch.


Did I mention that although the ice was solid and it was freezing cold the pitch was still running was water from the days before when it had obviously defrosted a little. What a way to climb. I couldn't look up without getting wet but need to see where I was going all the time. In the end I negotiated the easy section, place a final screw and just ran out the hard section trying to just push through the waterfall and not waste time placing gear. I caught sight of my screw now metre's beneath me and I paniced. I was almost through the hard section. Then I had a nice moment of clarity. Everything was going to be alright and I just carried on climbing. It was alright, I finished the pitch in the dark and Andy joined me before we both put each other's headtorch for them. We checked the camera to find out our position from the photo's I took on the walk in. We were nearly there...


And an hour or so later we took off our gloves and shook hands on a cold, dark featurless plateau while grinning wildly. The final section hadn't been without it's problems (running out of rope, the rope freezing etc) but it didn't matter. All we had to do was descend. I guess it really it's over till you get back to the car. So we hand railed the top of the crag whilst following the masses of converging footprints to find the grade 1 gully which was to be our descent. Nice and safety we plodded along down the gully and made down with no problems. Even once we'd removed all out climbing gear, the actual walk out wasn't that bad.

I checked my watch when we got back to the car. It read 2110. Not bad for our first day of the year. 12 hour day, a new cliff, our longest route and our hardest all in one day. I guess it's going to be a good year.

Route 3... and 4! (Cwm Idwal 22nd Dec 2010)

I'm been snowing since friday in B'ham. I've heard alot of people complaining about it too, I expecially liked the use of the phrase "snowmageddon". As if the end if nigh for the lowly people of B'ham... last I check it was about a foot of snow. But of course low and behold the city has come to a stand still and I keep seeing poor politicians on the news explaining that they are doing everything they can to keep the city moving and snow free, while arrogant and obtuse critics try to turn some snow and other misfortune into their own personal gain... enough politics, lets get back to whats important.

I got a very nice and polite e-mail from Paul in the Wrekin M.C the other day. I don't mention the Wrekin often enough on here as I'm not as active a member are I should be, given the amount of time I'm out climbing. The e-mail was simply "do I fancy getting out winter climbing sometime?". Well of course the answer was hell yes but I don't think Paul realised how soon I'd be calling. In light of the heavy snow affecting Wales and some advice from Mark "Baggy" Richards (to Paul) we set plans in motion to head off early in the week.

As for the "snowmageddon" in B'ham I managed to drive all the way out of the city with no problems onn the monday night and seeing as whoever maintains the A5 has been busy out with snowplows and gritters I think I actually made it to Paul's house quicker than I planned normally would have got. Once there we got a vague plan of heading to Idwal and seeing what was in condition.


Right then, up at 0600, porridge and then into the car. Paul was driving so I shamelessly drifted in and out of sleep until we arrived. As I said we'd planned to head to Idwal and arriving at the late time of about 0800 it seemed like there was already a good few people heading out. I feared for a second that we'd left it too late and we'd spend all day cueing. As it turns out this was not the case. There'd been a slight dumping of snow over the last week, but the tempertaure had been nice a low so the ice was in.


We headed in and aimed for the classic idwal route South Gully (grade IV,4). There was a part of three gearing up for it in front of us (I did wonder where the nice foot prints had come from?) so we decided instead of getting bombarded with ice as they climbed, we'd knock of something else instead. We settled on a snowplod called Central Gully (grade III). It was actually quite a nice route but it was a shame that there was just so much snow wading on it. There was short sections of ice and turf to climb up and enjoy, interspersed with snow. There wasn't much gear on the route, but I managed a bomber belay on each pitch.


When we topped out we met the party who'd done South Gully. The throughly reccommended it and we told them of our snow plod of a route, which wasn't the greatest. A very quick descent lead us back to our bags (and flasks or hot vimto!) passing the queues of the screen and the ramp, which although thin had people on them. After enjoying a nice break we flaked out our ropes and I set off up the first pitch of South Gully.


It was a pretty scary pitch to be honest. There wasn't any gear worth a damn on it until you got to the belay and the ice was all rotten, but it was climbable at least. The belay was bomber (thank god) and the next pitch did look a bit fantastic which made up for the last one. I brought up Paul and we managed to get a photo from a soloer who flashed past us. The poor party infront of us was havign a few technical difficulities. The leader had now run out of screws so had to stop and get a couple of spares out of his bag! then the poor guy ran out of rope as that only had 50metre lines. They moved together for a little and sorted out thier problems. The second kept apologising for taking so long, but it really didn't matter as we were no rush.


Bearing all we'd just seen in mind, thought happily of the 60 metre ropes I was tied to and decided to use my screws sparingly as to conserve them for the whole pitch. Then off I went, plodding up the snow first before I could get to the ice and then I was off. Screw in, clip the quickdraw and move as efficiently as possibly. I tried to read the ice to find the easiest line with the best ice at the same time. All the time concious of how far I was running it out from a screw. When the needle went too far into the red* time for another screw then move on up. I came to the crux of the route, a slightly overhanging section. It was overhanging by a few degrees, but if you've climbed ice you'll know that it seem like loads. I was a buldge in the ice I have to climb half around a surmount. I place a screw, clipped my screamer and then made the move. As it happened the crux wasn't that bad and I managed it just fine. 

The rest of the pitch went well. I didn't have any significant problemsand the angle soon eased. I reached the belay as the group infront were leaving and snagged a pretty sound belay and gave Paul a yell and a tug. I'd almost got a 60 metre pitch out of it too! Paul seconded it really quickly and lead through to the easy group and we moved together to finish off till we reached our footprints from before. All that was left was to descend and grab the bag before heading home. Not bad for a day trip to wales!

Friday 31st December 2010: Coire an t-snechda: Fiacall Ridge (grade II)

After having a day off on the Thursday because of the thaw going on we got pretty restless and annoyed when we looked at the weather report it said thaw… again! It’s just our luck that with all the awesome winter weather that this country has been receiving it would choose to thaw when we are in Scotland.

Nevermind, instead we went for Fiacall Ridge and grade II route which was described as “a good option under powder” in the guidebook. We actually wanted the reverse (under thaw) but a ridge would provide the sport we were looking for. Another reasonably early start (0640) and a good breakfast before setting off to Coire Cas. I stopped on the way to try and get some good photo’s of the Cairngorms in the morning light which have come out ok. 

Back on the same walk in as before but turning off up the ridge that fiacall sits on top of. The ridge itself was pretty easy going and not the long hard slog that I’d assumed that it would be. Underfoot it was much colder than the weather report had suggested and we plodded on up hard neve with our crampons on most of the way. We actually got to sit and watch the sun rise from a little rest spot out of the wind.

Conditions wise the weather had been kind to us so far, with it being much colder than expected but the wind was now starting to pick up. We got to watch the wind blow all the mist out of Coire an Lochain and over fiacall ridge into the sunlight creating a golden glow that settled over t-snechda. It was something really amazing to watch. 

The ridge itself was pretty reasonable. We decided to rope up well before it got difficult and out of the wind and I led off. Armed with a small rock rack and a single axe we wound along the ridge looping spikes and slings as I saw fit. Occasionally after a difficult section I would belay, quickly with and Italian hitch (so bloody useful).  We had only three difficulty sections on the whole ridge and I’d be happy with its grade II status. In the end we got to top out in the late morning sunshine for a tea break.

After  we had tea we decided to try for another route and dropped down the goat track with a mind to try Goat Track Gully (also grade II). By now the conditions were not the alpine clear skies we’d been blessed with in the morning but fog and high wind. A party were on the gully we wanted and another party bailed off the first pitch of Red Gully (next to it) in fear as apparently its was defrosting rapidly and pretty unsafe. This confirmed our suspicions and we abandoned any thoughts of climbing a gully. Instead we went with our original plan of following the top of t-snechda round and walking down the ridge by the ski centre. This proved to be a good walk in winds strong enough to knock us around and visibility short enough to encourage me to actually equip myself with my map and compass! The walk must have taken us over an hour and half of me was damp by the time we dropped out of the clag and wind from the constant one sided buffeting. 

We actually helped a couple of people out walking who were slipping and sliding down the ride with no axes or crampons. Andy lent them his (they have leashes) and we each walked down with one till the conditions underfoot improved.

 

Having put my crampons on at about 0830 that morning I removed them at the end of a nice short day of winter mountaineering before I stepped off the snow and into civilisation. The temperature is supposed to drop to -5degrees by tomorrow and me and Andy are heading to Cread Meghi… Bring it on!

(Topping out off Fiacal Ridge)

Wednesday 29th December 2010: Coire an Lochain

Another early start! Which was put on hold because there was a nice neat little sign up on the kitchen door saying that it was closed till 7. I guess it might have something to do with the burning sausage/smoke alarm incident from the morning before either way it meant that we’ll have a little more time in bed each day. In the end Andy read for an hour and I slept on the couch in the reception till someone came to open up the kitchen. Our plan to go to Creag Meghi was put on hold and we plumed for Coire an Lochain instead.

The walk in to Lochain is pretty easy, but just long and tiring. The snow was just deep enough to be really annoying and occasionally my foot would go through into a gap between the boulders beneath. Times like this were very annoying. With the fog and the mist down a little we had the map out and the guidebook so we wouldn’t miss the low ridge you need to walk up to reach buttresses 1 & 2. We were aiming for buttress no.2 and the climb called Andromeda (grade IV, 4). 

Crossing the rim of the” great slab” was an awesome experience, especially since the snow was frozen on the top so you’d go for one hell of a slide if you slipped and could break. It’s no wonder there is a massive avalanche here each year. My first impressions of Lochain were of an oppressive amphitheatre as it was currently visible through the mist. Massive towering buttresses that encircled you on three sides with tops that vansished. I’ll admit that I was a little scared. Added to all this it was thawing, a little. The temperature was about 2/3 degrees but it was enough to get us acting a little more cautiously. 

Andromeda then! Andy took the first pitch with follows the line of Milky Way (III) till you belay beneath the groove/chimney of Andromeda. Andy set off up some not so great snow and ice while I stood and belayed of one crummy peg. Andy climbed on and on till hew as about20 metres out and then excavated a tonne of snow before decided to lower off a piece of gear. I didn’t understand but dutifully lowered Andy off anyway. About 4 metres above me the gear suddenly pulled out sending Andy crashing onto the great slab below. He then started to slide down the slab with some pace. My first though was that the peg was not going to hold so I let go of the belay device and grabbed the rope to slow him down and try and ease the force onto the peg. I could just see us both getting pulled off. Andy at the same time breaked with his axe and stopped. This was a little more than I’d had in mind for a simple day out climbing. 

Uninjured apart from the a cut on his cheek from his axe (which has left a cracking bruise) he plodded back up to me and we swapped the lead. A mire slip would not defeat us! I lead off taking it very easy up the ice as it was rather bad until I actually found a decent belay. I think Andy’s final words to me were “bomber belay and ropes tight as an Iron bar” as he was a little shaken. I did just that.

Behind us now loomed the chimney of Andromeda and Christ did it look hard. Andy offered me the lead again and off I set. I managed to get up under the wrong groove in my initial attempt because I could see an opportunity for some protection but after placing it I knew I’d have a hard time actually gaining the chimney proper. I set about hunting around for the best of the bad ice at in the back and eventually found some meaning I could pull into it. Now all I could do was go up making us of the best of the bad ice as I went. I kept thinking that this would have been awesome under a complete freeze and a damn site easier! I ended up running it out a little as finding protection was hard and it just made more sense to keep moving. I was so scared.

At the crux, a small bulge in the ice I almost lost it. I was now run out in a defrosting chimney with no gear. In panic I hacked at the snow and ice accidentally revealing a hidden crack behind it.The little needle went out of the red and I placed a nut and committed to the crux. Needless to say I managed it and then it was easy snow and much better ice up the belay. After clipping my hex and run I could relax.

Andy didn’t seem to have any problems with that pitch but he wasn’t up for leading anything now so I headed off on what I assumed was the last pitch. It was just simple snow but I had to down climb a little to regain the route. This little down climb proved to be the cause some major problems later on in the day. As I plodded up the snow I then saw the cornice about a metre high and half a metre thick. My heart sank, I had thought the difficulties were over. I set to work digging through the cornice which is slow, hard and wet work. All in all I was soaked though by the time I punched my axe through the roof, bringing it down on myself. I set about climbing up and out of it which was the single most scary bit of climbing I’ve even done. If I’d slipped that was have been it because I have not gear other than the belay. I topped out shacking. 

I sort of hoped that there was someone on the top just to watch me climb out triumphantly but alas I was greeted by a cold windy, barren plateaux. No was the start of the final difficulty of the day. Remember the little down climb that I’d done, well now with Andy unable to hear me or me him, and the ropes pulling him in the wrong direction caught behind a load of ice and rock he couldn’t actually get up the last pitch. I was up on the plateaux for over an hour (I think) freezing cold and worrying about what had happened to him. He’d tried everything he could think of including trying to prussic up the rope, but he only had one prussic with him! Eventually with me laying on my stomach and leaning over the cornice (tied on of course) I could hear a few words on the wind from Andy. The word sounded a lot like “injured”.

My first thought was to call mountain rescue then I decided to find out what the problem was. I’m just a little against calling them out when we could get out of whatever it was ourselves. Instead I yelled to see if he was safe, eventually I got a call of “safe” back up. Now I set about digging and massive snow bollard to abseil back down to Andy on. Once I’d constructed something that you could have parked a car on and enlisted the ice axes of a hapless walker wondering around the plateaux to back it up, off I went. In truth I only abseiled the first 5 metres or so and the rest I kind of down climbed to eventually arrive at Andy. 

 

Apparently the call of “injured” was actually him calling “negative” through the wind because he thought I wouldn’t make out the word “no”. As I’ve explained he could actually climb up anyway and by now it was starting to get dark we abseiled off, leaving behind a hex and nut. The ropes made it all the way to the ground in one 60 metre abseil meaning we could just coil them and get back to our bags. 

By now it was getting pretty dark so we just packed up as quickly as we could and set off on the walk back. The mist and fog kept threatening to close in but by this point we’d actually found our foot prints from the walk in and we followed them back (mostly) until arriving at Coire cas, to drive home.

Considering the day we had it was over all quite serious what with Andy falling off, me abseiling off a snow bollard off the Cairngorm plateau and walking out in the dark. Coire an Lochain is an awesome place to climb and I can’t wait to get back there and see what else it’s got to offer! Maybe some walkie-talkies wouldn’t go a miss though…

Tuesday 28th December 2010: Coire t-Scnechda

The day started off well… I got 10 minutes extra in bed simply because my alarm didn’t go off. Seems that it was a good job I actually looked at my phone to see what the time was. Breakfast however was a little bit of a disaster. It seems that this YHA doesn’t like me cooking breakfast in the morning (last year the gas was turned off on the first morning…). Basically I managed to set the smoke alarm off at just past 6am. Not a great start.

With all the kit packed the night before we managed to make a quick (ish) get-away from the hostel and get to the coire na ciste car park nice and early, in appauling conditions. The car was rocking the wind was so strong and you could see that the visibility was going to be a real problem. I think both me and Andy considered going back to bed and sacking it off but people hope (unlike horses) and I at least figured that I’d driven all the way to Scotland, so weather or no weather we were going to get some climbing done (note: Andy probably didn’t even consider not climbing). Out in hoolie we trekked. 

The walk in itself was long, much longer than I remembered but less tiring. We were walking into the wind but I was using some walking poles. My knees have been playing up on long days out in winter with a heavier pack than normal and it’s time I started looking after them. Admittedly have less of a strain on the legs meant that my arms took some of the work and I felt it.

Arriving at the gearing up point, in a near white out we decided on The Runnel  however finding it proved more of a problem than we first thought. I’ll admit that I sent us off in the wrong direction in the beginning which due to excellent white out conditions saw us climbing up snow, neve and ice slopes to top out on the Cairngorm plateau. It was my mistake and we quickly descended by the route we’d come as the wind was gusting close to 60mph. As we were descending the same line as we’d just come up we opted for some  bum-sliding to speed things up a little. This is where I committed my seconded mistake of the day… not removing my crampons. I managed to lose control of my slide as I hit the 50 degree ice slopes and clip a crampon spinning me round. I slide all in all about 100 metres before I managed to spin and ice axes arrest, shaking. As I’m writing this the pain in my knee and ankle act as a reminder of my stupidity.

I don’t think that I made any other stupid mistakes on this day, instead I descended a lot more carefully and taking advantage of the a break in the weather spied a buttress over to the right and we headed for it. Standing in knee/waist deep snow at the base of several choice looking gullies, blankly staring at the guidebook because we had no idea where we were, Andy just suggested that we climb up the best looking gully. As we geared up a local guide and partner met us as they did the adjacent route and informed us that it was Red Gully (III, 4), pretty much the sort of thing we were after.

I took the first pitch which started with a powder snow plod so bad that I seriously considered that; one I would be able to get up the snow and two; was it worth it. Staring up between the breaks of the spindrift avalanches that continually snowed down on us I figure it was. The route did look pretty awesome. The next 50 metres we great mixed climbing, with just enough gear. There was several icey steps to surmount, not all the time with my axes (one I chimneyed up with my arms). The route was done in proper Scottish winter conditions, with heavy spindrift avalanches piling down every few minutes.  I actually found a pretty bomber belay after cleaning  powder and hoar frost from a crack and gave the magical three tugs to signal I was safe.

Andy arrived after yelling for a tight rope. I yelled “why?” and got the ominous answer of “ I’ll show you in a minutes”. Needless to say he had a more than adequate reason… a bolt had worked itself loose and one of the picks of his axe flopped around like a wounded animal. It was agreed I would lead the next pitch which turned out to me a 60m neve gully. I didn’t bother with any gear because I was so cold and just concentrated on moving quickly and staying warm. I tugged the full 60metres as I tried to top out and sat on the rim in a bucket seat (which froze my arse) and back up buried ice axe. Andy got waist belay treatment.

The weather on the Cairngorm Plateaux hadn’t exactly got any better and we opted to descend by the route we already descended once already that day. I was much more careful this time and we actually found the mountain rescue box at the base as conditions finally started to improve! The cloud lifted a little and the wind dropped so we de-kitted and walked out with clear skys. Not bad for our first day.