The fantastic winter weather has continued through what has been the most pleasant but busiest winter climbing weekend of the season so far....
The Northern Corries were mobbed with many routes having long long queues! We were orginally going to avoid climbing during weekend but as the settled weather was forecast to breakdown on Monday we headed into the much quieter Coire an Lochain - along with another fifty odd climbers!!! Name a route, any route, hard or easy and it was being climbed!!
The Northern Corries were mobbed with many routes having long long queues! We were orginally going to avoid climbing during weekend but as the settled weather was forecast to breakdown on Monday we headed into the much quieter Coire an Lochain - along with another fifty odd climbers!!! Name a route, any route, hard or easy and it was being climbed!!
The snow at the foot of Number 2 Buttresses was good but more crusty than in Coire an t-Sneachda due to the aspect and extra altitude.
In the end we climbed Central Crack Route as it was free when we reached the top of the corrie approach slopes. It was a route that Fi hadn't climbed and I'd last climbed over 15 years ago. It was a Grade III then and Savage Slit was Grade IV in my older SMC and John Cunningham and Allen Fyffe guidebooks!
Central gave us a pitch or two each. Apart from the first crux pitch which was a strenuous iced up crack (hard if not built up) and the awkward squeeze chimney groove above, the route gave excellent climbing on snow, rock and ice without the usual cornice difficulties.
More info and photos on Fi's blog at http://www.marmotte.co.uk/blog/2009/12/blog-post.html
In the end we climbed Central Crack Route as it was free when we reached the top of the corrie approach slopes. It was a route that Fi hadn't climbed and I'd last climbed over 15 years ago. It was a Grade III then and Savage Slit was Grade IV in my older SMC and John Cunningham and Allen Fyffe guidebooks!
Central gave us a pitch or two each. Apart from the first crux pitch which was a strenuous iced up crack (hard if not built up) and the awkward squeeze chimney groove above, the route gave excellent climbing on snow, rock and ice without the usual cornice difficulties.
More info and photos on Fi's blog at http://www.marmotte.co.uk/blog/2009/12/blog-post.html
4 comments:
Hi Ron,
Nice photos. I'm Carlos, the Spanish who was soloing today in Lochain. It was nice chatting to you and Fi, let's hope this season brings many great days like today! The sunset over frozen loch Tulla with the hills in the background was something to behold
Btw if you have any photos of me as you mentioned it'd be fun to see them to las.heras.carlos@gmail,com, if and when you feel like sending them, of course!
Hi Ron,
Bit of a self indulgent request, but I was the climber on Fallout Corner that day and was wondering if it would it be possible to get a copy of the photos?
Thanks for keeping the likes of us in North Wales up to date with detailed blogs/conditions reports - been up for a couple of two day raids now and they really make a difference!
Speak soon,
Rob
Joe Brown Climbing Shops
Fantastic weather and climbing conditions for December..........
Have sent you both somme photos via email
Thanks for posting
Cheers Ron
Email from Carlos:
Hi Ron!
Cheers for the photos, I'll try to repay you some time :-)
Last weekend I did ventilator with a variation, oesophagus, goat track gully, another gully right next to it, a popular one, name escapes me, and finished with hidden chimney. I attempted the vent and chute route and retreated from both due to crusty unconsolidated sugary s***e! (pardon my French). Otherwise conditions were OK with good neve but also quite a bit of unhelpful crust and some cornices were quite big (y gully right branch for instance), although of course all that will be different by now. Oesophagus was particularly nice with thin ripples of ice on the right hand side of the corner which gave it kind of an Alpine goulotte character.
I hope you have been out and having fun and that there is a lot more fun to come. See you in the hills!
Carlos
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