Seasonal Affected Disorder: January 2008

Managed to squeeze in a couple of days climbing at the end of last week before I headed off to Rome this morning. On thursday Viv and I went to Stob Coire in Glencoe on a fairly unpleasant sounding forecast. It was less windy than we expected but didn't feel particularly cold and as it snowed most of the day we go quite damp by the end. Despite this, the crag was in spankingly good condition, covered in snow and rime and with brilliant turf and only one other party in the coire.

We decided to have a look at Scrabble, an VIII/7 that climbs Central Grooves for about 10m before breaking out in a very improbable way onto the left arete and then taking hanging corners above. After a serious amount of faffage Viv set off up the initial groove that looked both hard and not overly endowed with gear and I got settled in for a lengthy 3hrs+ belay session. Once established in the spectacular but precarious position of the arete, he decided that the liberal coating of verglas was making making further progress unenticing and so instead headed back into and up CG, after running the first two pitches together, it was my turn to flail my way up. The first few metres were a rude shock, involving a very burly move off a horizontal torque with little for the feet and then some thin bridging with little for the axes, I found it very hard and my arms were already blown after the first 15m. The second half of the pitch felt like more standard Stob Coire fare and had more positive hooks and torques but still wasn't liberally endowed with great footholds, often involving some very high steps on not a great deal.

By the time I reached the belay it was 4pm but the upper section looked a little more straightforward. Unfortunately the way was barred by a steep step that was effectively an unprotected boulder problem. I fannied around for a while, not really prepared to take the lob that would've probably left me below Viv and eventually we decided that climbing in the dark in a whiteout was a less attractive proposition than going back to Edinburgh for a ceildh so we bailed. The abseil down showed how steep the line was and the climbing is without doubt some of the most absorbing and the hardest I've done, definitely one to go back for.

Saturday morning saw Duncan, Konnie, Steve, Viv and I up early and bright eyed for a trip to Lochnagar, there wasn't a cloud in the sky at the Loch Muick car park and when we arrived at the Meikle Pap col in ferociuos winds I finally got to see the whole crag for the first time. It was absolutely plastered and buoyed up by the very loud Chemical Brothers, I was dribbling pysche by the time we reached the first aid box.

Duncan's knees were sore, so Konnie and I headed off to Parallel Buttress (VI,6) by ourselves. Konnie headed up the first pitch but after a couple of hours and having knocked down lots of snow only about 20m of a 280m route had been done, he shouted down that he wasn't very keen on continuing and given how buried the route looked we decided to bail and head for something easier. So far a combined total of about 5 and a half hours belaying had yielded about 45m of climbing in the last couple of days.

We headed for Moonshadow (V,5) on a subsidary buttress of Shadow A, Duncan had stayed in the Coire with Viv and Steve (who climbed Mantichore VII/7) and wandered over to join us on this, three 50m pitches of turfy and slightly icey but often quite bold mixed climbing was followed by the last easy part of Shadow Buttress A to the plateau, the route felt pretty soft for V but was enjoyable despite the wind picking up considerably near the top.

As we coiled the ropes, I turned to ask Duncan where his bag was, he turned to Konnie who didn't have it but said he'd wedged it between rocks at the last belay, Duncan soloed back down to look for it and then someone told him they'd seen a bag blow off. For some reason Konnie hadn't clipped it in (the words 'bear with very little brain' spring to mind) and it was now god knows where. This was slightly worrying as it had my bag inside it that contained my ipod, trekking poles and six ice screws plus both our headtorches (it was now 4.30).

As we headed back to Col, Konrad, partly as sole possessor of a headtorch, partly beacuse he would be the quickest and mainly cos it was his fault was sent back into the coire to search as we huddled under a boulder to shelter from the fairly savage breeze. Luckily some kind soul had found it and put it by the first aid box, so disaster was averted and we all lived happily ever after and returned to Edinburgh.