A Great Run…
Setting off on Shield Direct..
After Guiding with Chris, next morning saw myself, John and Paul breaking trail to Carn Dearg and the super classic Shield Direct..we’d read a team had got quite high on the route but not quite finished it earlier in the week…..it’s been on the list for years and didn’t disappoint…for added interest John had to make a quick replacement crampon bail in the CIC hut out of a bit of wire and the aid of a hammer..nothing phases John it would seem!
We’d like to claim the first “All Ulster Guys” ascent….what a great laugh.
Next day Paul and I had a mellower outing to Ben Udlaidh to climb some more ice. We piled up the Croc and Captain Hook…both in stonking nick.
Captain Hook…a little bit of Cogne in Glen Orchy…
And then with a open mind I headed back to Carn Dearg with Donald and Guy next morning early…again..
We’d planned something mostly on ice, but as we got closer to the crag it was one of those obvious choices. The raging northerly storm had the crag white and so Donald set his pack down below The Centurion….and so a day not to forget with amazing great mixed climbing up soaring grooves and roofs with perfect drooling ice to finish…
White in every direction on Centurion….
Donald did a great job on the long pitch 2 with our limited rack intended for ice climbing…
Eventually reaching the traverse of the Cold Climbs classic of Route 2..
Sunday required a gentleman’s start…and so John, Lee and I set off in the sun up towards Beinn an Dothaidh with our sights on The Screaming…a series of steep mixed grooves and cracks above the ice classic of Cirrus.
John dealing with the rude start on pitch 1…
We lead a great pitch each and Lee took the honours on the crux top pitch…his first lead this winter!
Lee dispatching the crux…
A really great route…safe all the way and excellent climbing…the top pitch superb!
The following 5 days I got to enjoy some more classics in the company of the staff of the Joint Services Adventurous Training Centre at Ballachulish. The aim was to prepare for some upcoming MIC assessments. No 6 Gully on Aonach Dubh, Ramshead Buttress and Peter Pan Direct at Beinn Udlaidh, Harrison’sDirect on Carn Dearg, Tower Ridge and North Buttress on the Buachaille provided the outings…great routes, company and weather for the course…good luck with the assessments!
Beautiful Glencoe…
Dan on Harrison’s Direct…Shroud to the left..
Andy, Rob and me at Tower Gap..
With the weekend off I was back up at Carn Dearg with Lee for the ice I’d thought about the previous Saturday before being side tracked by Centurion…
We climbed a good steep pillar between Gemini and Waterfall Gully as a start to a rarely repeated climb called The Bewildabeast….Pete and Andy were hot on our heels too!
Our first pitch as TB starts up Waterfall Gully a fair bit….
On The Bewildabeast..
The route is as it says in the guidebook…”The most out there ice on the Ben”…we all linked pitch 2 and 3 and the top pitch is one of the most exposed ice pitches on the mountain for sure. It got 3 more ascents the next day from Murdoch, Andy, John, Nelly as well as Ben Nevis guru Robin Clothier and partner confirming its quality.
We down climbed Waterfall Gully to the foot of Cubby’s classic True Finish which gave 2 further superb pitches of magic icy corners…
True Finish…
Sunday we visited the NE face of Aonach Beag which is currently in the best conditions I’ve seen there. We climbed one of the original classics there called Camilla which I hadn’t seen complete before and then nipped up a superbly icy Blackout before strolling back over the plateau to a very welcome gondola.
Crux section of Camilla, Aonach Beag…
Lee nearing top of Camilla…
This morning I started work on a Winter Climbing Intro course for Joint Services again…we swung perfect sticks into the classic White Shark at Aonach Mor’s Coire an Lochain…hopefully a good start to the week ahead…..
When the Highlands are like this there is genuinely nowhere better!
