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.