Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Cairngorms, Goat Track Gully




I am in the Cairngorms this week making the most of the winter conditions. I have been joined for today and tomorrow by a friend of mine, Jason, who has done some winter walking and wanted to do some winter climbing. We walked into Sneachda and did refreshed basic crampon and axe skills, avalanche awareness and then climbed Goat Track Gully. This is a great grade II route that we climbed in 4 pitches. It was very windy on the top, we headed down the Goat Track and then spent some time looking at buried axe belays, buckets seats and snow bollards before retiring to the cafe. A great day out. It is very cold with the freezing level at around 700m. The snow is thin but the ground is well frozen, the crags nicely rimed and some reasonable ice about. Parties were climbing on Fiacall Buttress and the Runnell but poor visibility meant it was hard to see what else was being done. 

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