Monday, November 24, 2008

Winter Climbing in the Cairngorms




I have got this week off so have headed up to the Cairngorms for a few days to play in the snow. It was all a bit last minute so I could not find anyone else with a week off work and have come up on my own.
Today I headed into Coire an t-Sneachda. There is snow down to the road in Aviemore but the snowplough has been hard at work and the road to the ski centre car park was clear. The walk into Sneachda was hard work with no visibility and post holing snow. I headed up to the base of the crag and was amazed at the sheer volume of snow, all I could see was white, although the weather meant I could only see about 5 metres ahead of me! I climbed Crotched Gully (Grade II) which was very thin with no ice in the gully. I abseiled off after about 100 metres rather than brave the wind torn plateau. There were teams on Red Gully, The Runnell and the Mess of Pottage and ice had formed on some of the buttresses but there is loads of unconsolidated snow lying about.

No comments: