Bottled Happiness

I probably always rant on about how good such and such a view is or how Scotland is clearly the most beautiful place on earth, but then sometimes you get a day where you walk around with your jaw dragging along the floor, open mouthed at everything and buzzing like Amy Winehouse after a quiet night in. Anyway, Tuesday in the Cairngorms was one of those days. If that sounds like ridiculous hyperbole then you’ve got to understand that I’m writing this in the fairly grim surroundings of the Weatherspoons at Terminal 4 at Heathrow and the few light ales that I’m drinking to stave off the impending twenty four hours of travel are beginning to kick in.



With the deserts of Rajasthan providing sub-optimal conditions for winter based activities in the next few weeks, the prospect of warm, cloudless and still weather was enough to send me haring off up the A9 at stupid o’clock once again. Jones had bravely volunteered to accompany me on a potter across the plateau to Ben Macdui for her first ski tour and she probably couldn’t have picked a better day to do it.



Although the snow line was fairly high, we didn’t have to walk for too long with our skis on backs before we could start skinning up one of the drag lift tracks in Coire Cas towards the summit of Cairngorm, a mountain I’d always managed to avoid walking up, the thought of a warm car being much more of attraction after a day in the Norries. I guess it’s normally covered in fat punters making the short trek from the top of the train but was deserted as we arrived at sunrise and I savoured the ‘endless vistas’ (can’t be arsed to provide the reference but you know who you are) on top of my 50th Munro (not that I’m a sad bagger or anything…).



For future reference the ski straight south from the summit holds more snow than a line towards Sneachda, but after a bit of rock hopping we enjoyed a decent run down. Although hard packed, the snow was surprisingly grippy and good to ski on. I could describe the skin across the plateau but I reckon the pictures say it all, it really does feel like the artic up there.



The only two people we saw all day were two walkers leaving the summit of Macdui just before we arrived, but apart from that we were completely alone, revelling in the silence as we easily glided across the plateau on snow custom made for touring.





The panorama from top of Macdui was awesome, in the foreground Ben Avon, the huge corries of Braeriach (still holding quite a lot of snow and much more wintry than the elsewhere) and slightly further away Lochnagar. In the distance, the view stretched from Ben Wyvis, the Fannichs, Torridon, Kintail to the high peaks of Lochaber, with southern highland giants like Ben More and Ben Lawers poking out of a cloud inversion in the south.



Happiness in a bottle? Or am I just getting spiritual on y’all (wink).



Not much else to say except we skied back, wicked day. Roll on India.



On another exciting note the photos I took of the Secret the other week have been picked up by climbing websites in the US, Germany, Italy, Austria as well as loads over here (and possibly Climb as well), pretty chuffed about that, just wished they paid me…

Blue Skies On The Ben

I reluctantly got out of bed at 3.20 in the morning, seriously debating whether it was worth it, but we were rewarded with a blue sky day, frosted cliffs and some fantastic mixed climbing...



It's quite a long way to walk up into Coire na Ciste but as we approached the CIC you could see that 3 Gully Buttress and the crags at the top of the Ciste were enticingly white in the dawn light.



There was quite alot of snow around the hut and on the way up, but luckily a trail had been blazed by the party ahead, the crack team of Andy Turner & Steve Ashworth and (ahem!) Viv (more on that story later). Conditions on the crag looked and were perfect, any turf around was well frozen, every inch of rock was covered in a liberal coating of rime and the cracks weren't too icy.



Konnie and I did the 'modern classic' Gargoyle Wall (VI,6) on Number 3 Gully Buttress, which fully lived up to its billing. Whilst not taking the most direct line up the crag, once your on it it's very logical and provided (for us at least) a nicely sustained day out.



The first pitch was probably the most serious, being fairly icy and thus quite tricky to protect. The hardest section was pulling over a roof in a narrow chimmney with your axes embedded in what you hoped was good ice above.



The crux pitch are the Gargoyle Cracks, ably dispatched by Konnie. These cracks split a 10m vertical wall and look fairly intimidating from below and although the footholds are good, the hooks for axes are by no means perfect slots and position is intimidatingly exposed high above the gully bed.



I decided to throw myself off the first section of the next pitch whilst on some rather easy ground (grade IV max). One of my crampon points become stuck in the strap of the other one and with both legs tied together I bounced down a couple of snowy ledges, no harm done though and the rest of the pitch to the passed without any more drama.



The 360° views from the plateau were stunning, a reminder why the West Coast is superior in almost every way to the East, with snow topped mountains illuminated by the afternoon sunlight receeding into the distance in every direction (it was even quite warm in the sun), those who thought Tuesday was going to be the better day missed out...



Darth Vader also got an ascent by Kenny from the ice factor (cheers for the lift down) and it look an amazing line, just need to get a bit better now.



The main event of the day however was what was going on opposite us - the first ascent of 'The Secret' by Andy Turner (seconded by Viv and Steve Ashworth). This takes the soaring crack line that splits a very steep wall to the left of Cornucopia and all I can say is that it looked bloody hard. Andy led the route onsight and from afar it was an incredibly controlled, fluid and impressive feat of levitation. For most of the crack he appeared to be standing on nothing, holding onto nothing and it was a privilege to have a ringside seat in the evening sunlight on the Number 3 Gully Buttress viewing platform, all that was missing was cold beer and some pork scratchings.



When we met up the others at CIC, the difficulty of the route and just how much of an impressive achievement it was were confirmed. A whole array of weird mixed moves were employed and the result was quite possibly the hardest onsight winter route in Scotland to date. Awe inspiring stuff.



We had a quick stop at Banff Crescent (doss to the stars) on the way back that turned into a rather longer stay than was planned. The Rob Jarvis media machine had been cranked up to the max, blogs updated, pictures swapped, UKC informed etc. I then got flashed doing 70mph in that short section of 50 on the way into Edinburgh on the M9, bugger, points and fines for me.
Ps Big thankyou to Chris for finding my glove.

And So

Good to get out for the first time this winter yesterday, made a last minute decision on sunday evening and managed to persuade duncan and konnie that it was a good idea. Coire an Lochain was in great condition, well rimed although the weather was fairly filthy all day and snowing quite heavily as we walked out. I imagine that most of the snow is now probably heading very rapidly towards the river Spey.





Did Savage Slit which was fairly straightforward for the grade, good kit all the way and some enjoyable thrutching. Watched Ian Parnell do a new more direct start to prore and then piss up the rest of the route, making it look very easy. Forgot my jacket and ended up getting slightly damp and cold in the blizzard.






The heavy traffic on the A9 on the way home (especially the lorries) gave me some seroius road rage. Roll on more northerlies... (hmmm)