Petzl Gully Review and Good Ice Starting to Form :-)

Today I was out looking for thick ice while testing a the latest ultra lightweight Petzl Gully hammer with the new Petzl Sum'tec ice axe. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Petzl hammer's thin pick easily penetrated the water ice despite it's ridiculous low weight (280 grams). 

I didn't get a chance to try the hammer and it's maybe not the tool for hard mixed, extreme ice and dry tooling but for general mountaineering on snow and ice it works really well.

The Petzl Gully is sold mainly as a steep skiing snow gully/couloir tool but when reviewing the hammer I found it was equally well suited to easy ice climbing on some steep ice bulges especially when paired with the slightly heavier and more robust Sum'tec mountaineering axe. 

Quite worrying approach over any hard snow towards 'Mhearad's Fall' due to avoidable depth hoar or facets, so I am told, unless of course you are trying to access the ice route but being able to plunge the Sum'tec into the ground below gave added confidence!

Once on the ice it was nice, relatively safe and really enjoyable. With a brief freeze thaw it'll get even better unless it all melts OR gets buried by lots of fresh snow ;-)

Bespoke Guiding and ice climbing on Cairngorm's 'hidden Alpine Face' routes can be booked online here >>>

Alpine Climbing Conditions on Cairngorm 5th January 2017

A bit of a hike but well worth it for a fun winter mountaineering and winter ice climbing adventure on Cairngorm' east facing 'Alpine Face' on Cnap Coire na Spreidhe. This secluded area is right in the heart of the Cairngorms but does require a long approach over Cairngorm's shoulder into the Strathnethy.

We had near perfect weather, ice and snow as we climbed yet another new unrecorded ice route which we called 'Mhearad's Fall'!

The the main frozen waterfall route is a good early or poor season choice when there's lots of escape-able Grade 2 or even Grade 3 variation before it banks out.

If you don't mind the long approach there are several other short ice climbs to the right and even some longer 300-400 metre mountaineering routes on Spreidhe's east facing 'Alpine Face'.

'Mhearad's Fall' - a new Grade 1/2 winter route up the Ciste Mhearad waterfall from the Strath Nethy. The route normally banks out to a Grade 1 snow gully but in cold lean early season, it reliably forms a number of ice steps at around Grade 2/3, if taken direct.

Later in the season when banked out provides a challenging off piste descent which for the less bold can be abseiled!

More photos can be found on our Facebook album here.

Two places still left on this weekends Winter Skills course running on the 7-8 January 2017 so what are you waiting for, book now!