Out and About

With a fairly decent wintery forecast for the weekend Romain and I headed off on thursday night for a long weekend of climbing / biking fun.

First up we headed over to Cairngorm to Corrie an t-sneachda, where we decided to break our selves back in to the winter climbing groove with an ascent of Fingers Ridge. Conditions weren't ideal as it turned out with unconsolidated snow on black rock. this lead to very timeconsuming clearing as we searched for gear and placements - though plenty were forthcoming. After a very long time on the route (c.7hrs!!!!) we topped out to a nice (by cairngorm's standards) day on the plateau with only moderate wind and even the occasional glimpse of something other than cloud to be had.

A reward of a fish supper saw us on the way to Torlundy and the Northface carpark, though not before we managed to drive off with the van side door open, DOH!! Still, a comfortable nights sleep in the carpark and we were up at 4 to head off up Ben Nevis for route number 2.

A reasonable amount of snow was lying so we headed up towards tower ridge, and arrived as the 1st team of the day were setting off up the starting chimney. Luckily for us they wandered off route soon after and we managed to skip past them before the little tower. A brief pause at the little tower for food and water saw us joined by the two teams following us. One of whom shot off into the distance ahead of us never to be seen again, and the other who decided they'd like to follow someone who new the route (plus were busy rolling up for a quick fag break). We continue up to the great tower where we found the eastern traverse to be in good nick with solid neve - though I did find it a little un-nerving tip-toeing along! The drop down into the tower gap has not been improved by the blocks which fell away earlier in the year - and all parties seemed to be making use of the insitu slings to get down safely. the climb back out was a couple of great moves, well lead by Romain, before easy ground took us to the plateau. suspiciously, Tower Ridge also took us 7hrs to complete, largely due to a fair amount of powder lower down ontop of the decent consolidated snow. As we climbed though, the snow quality just got better and better and pas nigh on perfect by the top.

A quick descent down no.4 gully to the CIC and were were back at the van, knackered for about 6pm.

After our days efforts a Pasta Carbonara was consumed in the van, followed by a swift trip to the Ben Nevis Inn for a sly half of Cairngorm Callie. Sunday was our recovery day and spend eating breakfast in Nevis Sport before driving back to Aberdeen.

Monday (the last day of freedom) saw us heading to Ballater for a few hours mountain biking. we headed north from the pass of ballater, over to Morven Lodge, the hill behind and then down to the east side of Glengairn and hence back to Ballater. A lovely area of the cairngorms and very scenic in the wintery weather. The bikes coped admirably with the snow and ice, with only a few emergency bailing moments - esp suprising given I've not gotten round to changing my road orienteered tyres off offroad ones yet! A cracking few hours all in though.

Cheers!

Stu