With a good frost over the past week it was time for an other early season winter climbing adventure with Scott to make access easier to some of the routes we've climbed over the past few years. It's always interesting to note the changes in the snow ice buildup throughout the winter season and in particular to find rap anchor point that wont be buried under metres of snow ice later in the season!!!
I was last up this 300 metre gully line with clients in March 2018 and we had superb snow ice conditions from the Strath Nethy all the to Cnap Choire Spreidhe summit, see video here.
However today the buildup was very limited which made anchor selection easier as long as a you avoided the partially frozen shattered and loose rock. We traversed in to avoid the fist 150 metre of abseiling which would likely damage the ground with out it's thick mantle of snow ice.
The first anchor point on the terrace, I'd spotted last March was obvious, however the following anchor points are situated in overhanging caves which had been completely buried in thick snow ice last March and will need re-positioned later but at least we now have relatively easy access!!
After the third and final 50 metre abseil we headed back up before taking another more direct line to the summit on superb frozen snow and turf.
A short video can be seen here and it is worth comparing with last March's blog and March 2018's video here!
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