Glencoe Climbing
Just had a fun week climbing in and around the ‘Coe. Conditions have been good for certain routes and gnarly for others. I’ve mostly visited Stob Coire nan Lochan and the Buachaille climbing very icy buttress routes….climbing has been fun and modest for their given grades but not so much gear…Grade V mixed routes have felt like grade IV snow ice routes and even a esoteric VII in SCNL had dropped a few numbers!
N Buttress on the Buachaille…very good ice.
The work has been during an annual collaboration with Mountain Equipment, Gore, Cotswolds Outdoors and PYB. Good fun, lots of great equipment to try….the worse the weather the better. Over the week we had fairly robust winter weather with a lot of wind and snow…ideal.
On a snowy Raeburn’s Route, SCNL
The tally for the week was Raeburn’s twice, Scabbard Chimney, Spectre, Moonshadow, Financial Times and Death or Glory in Stob Coire nan Locahan. The obscure 999 on Gear Aonach and 2 trips up the North Buttress on the Buachaille. If you read the given book grades you’ll be surprised that they climbed roughly the same this last week.
Icy Spectre..way better than usual conditions
Scabbard Chimney….another fun ice route currently
So maybe when all this ice and snow settles we’ll have another amazing Ben late season…at the moment it’s forecast more SE winds and snow.
Walking down NW ridge of Lagangarbh corrie after N Buttress
