More NW ice climbing!

Another great day exploring and ice climbing in Mad Hatters Gully in Coire Na Poite on Beinn Bhan. Despite plenty of ice on the classic Silver Tear's first few pitches and in Mad Hatters the coire was completely empty, though we later heard some climbers voices half way up an icy March Hare Gully just as we were leaving.  
Ice conditions were surprisingly brittle and glassy with evidence of recent avalanche debris, ice and cornice collapse. 
Full details and more photos on Fi's Marmotte Blog here

Ice climbing on Umbrella Falls...

 

Calmer and sunnier weather this time as we headed up on to Liathach's ridge via Umbrella Falls, a classic Mick Fowler Grade 5 ice climb. 

We had yet another great day in Liathach Coire Dubh Mor, though taking in the lower tier of Umbrella Falls and then heading for the summit after the crux,was longer and trickier than expected. 

We had the climb to ourselves although the neighbouring 'Poachers Fall' was busy and folk were abseiling off as others climbed below, so couldn't have been so pleasant, despite the good weather and snow conditions on the mountain. 

A team from Aviemore were climbing on 'Salmon Leap' and like us enjoyed the fine views from the ridge though it sounds as if Tom enjoyed the views twice!

Climbing up onto the summit before descending to our sacks in the coire down 'Way Up', was more than worth it for the stunning views from the narrow snow arete on the summit ridge!

The ice climbing was fantastic with some steep and delicate sections and a very steep sustained crux, that had me worrying about running out of ice screws and strength before it relented! The crux headcam video is now here

More details and pictures on Fi's Marmotte Blog here

Play day on Poachers Fall, Liathach...

A great but tiring day climbing the classic Poachers Fall ice route on Liathach.

As there's been a lot of fresh snow over in the east and the Ben routes we wanted to do looked dodgy.
We decided to drive up to Torridon in the far NW as it has been cold and dry recently, so seemed like a safer bet.

It turned out to be a good choice as there was very little fresh snow until we left the path at the watershed to head up into Liathach's Coire Dubh Mor.The snow was thin and crusty until we climbed into the main coire.

With fresh powder and some windslab the big easy gullies were best avoided but the main icefalls such as Umbrella, Poachers and Salmon Leap looked good and two teams were already climbing.

Another team had turned back though the approaches were on crusty powder and not overly worrying.
We headed up to climb Poachers Fall once the team ahead of us had climbed the main icefalls and were about to abseil down, to climb Salmon Leap.

The climbing was great, with hard but not brittle water ice softened by spindrift snow. This gave great axe placement and reliable ice screw protection.
The top of the crux pitch was  thinner and more technical than normal but fun in retrospect, though I'm glad my crampon didn't pop off here, as it did later on in the chimney pitch, see video here!

There was recent insitu tat so we abseiled off at the end of the difficulties to avoid any unstable snow on the final easy pitch and to save our knees. It might be worth replacing the old worn tat at the pegs that the new tat is actually attached to!

In all a great but tiring day until the police stopped the car for a spot check but as all was well,they wished us a good evening and on we went. We forgot to point out to them that one of their headlights wasn't working!

More details on Fi's Marmotte Blog can be found here