Tuesday 26 December 2017

Early Bird

Loch Tulla at sunrise (credit Sara Cockburn).
Winter arrived to the Scottish hills midway through November, with conditions getting better and better as the weeks rolled in. A series of snowy north-westerlies and consistently cold air transformed the autumnal hills into their winter garb, with ice beginning to form pretty rapidly.


Stob Ghabar (credit Sara Cockburn).
At the start of November an over optimistic trip into Coire an Lochain with Scott G was rebutted at the Lochain, where we both arrived soaked to skin, the cliffs tantalizingly white. Alas it was to be later on in the month until the season kicked off for me. I met up with Jonny Livesey on the 24th of November and we arranged to go for a look at Noe Buttress high on Ben Cruachan. I was up walking with Sara and Lewis a week or so previous on Beinn a'Chochuill and Beinn Eunaich and was impressed with the grandness of the Cruachan range. That along with the enthusiastic reports of the route Tainted Elixir online and more importantly in Simon Richardson's 'Chasing the Ephemeral', we were convinced to go for a look. 


Lewis looking to Beinn Chochuill with the Cruachan range behind.
It was a slow drive up Loch Lomond side with the roads not gritted or cleared, the fresh snow instilling some fear about the impending long walk in. We soon arrived at the Falls of Cruachan train station where we parked up. The walk in starts steeply up through a birch forest before crossing a stile and the ensuing bog march before reaching the dam. An easy walk alongside the the reservoir then branches left heading up into Coire Dearg. It was slow going breaking trail up through here with a mixture of bog and rocky terrain underfoot. A very slight navigational error put us on the top of Meall Cuanail rather than the bealach, a Munro for the purists lets say, but the clouds parted at its top giving us beautiful views across Argyll and Mull. From here a slow walk down then up the scree covered Ben Cruachan summit ridge saw us at its top. 


Gubbed. The Coire Chat walk in!
From the summit we got our first glimpse of Noe Buttress and it did indeed look promising. The cliffs were aesthetically white with the blustery snow showers helping improve this further. It was bitingly cold walking down the West ridge, we were both concerned for our numb digits! We dumped the sacks above an obvious gully which led down into Coire Chat and geared up. It was a simple approach from there thankfully and we eventually found ourselves at the cliff base four and a half hours after leaving the car! 


Jonny on P1 of Tainted Elixir.
Our first impressions of the cliff were good, it is compact with not much turf unlike most other South-West Highland crags, well featured and reasonably steep. In many ways it is pretty similar in style to the Northern Corries on compact granite, maybe Sneachda more so. Tainted Elixir is located easily at its left hand side following an obvious corner groove system. It is described in three pitches but we elected to climb it in two, preferring to extend them out. 


Jonny doing battle with the initial tricky corner on Tainted Elixir.
Jonny took the first pitch which kicks off straight away, taking the obvious right facing bulging corner by way of some good but reachy hooks. The feet were pretty thin through here requiring some thought and warm biceps. After sussing out the moves Jonny moved through the hooks no bother and up onto some easier ground. An enjoyable steep cracked wall continued above before Jonny belayed immediately below the impending overhanging slot above. 


Jonny at the steep cracked wall, Tainted Elixir.
I was feeling a little intimidated by the sight of the overhang from below, after the usual first winter pitch of the season jitters. Although there wasn't much time for hanging around with day light soon to fade. I moved up off the belay using a good front point nick out right and spanned my left foot out wide onto the wobbly perched block. The gear wasn't obvious at first so I battered in a solid bulldog before committing a little higher to search out the blind hooks and gear. It was soon laced up leaving me with no excuses to pull on through the overhang. The blind but good hooks continued to come and the climbing was enjoyable although over all so quickly. Easy ground then led back up onto the ridge and Jonny soon followed up just before day light faded. 


A gub foo of jelly babies.
Some night navigation practice eventually found us back down at the car, although just a little too late for the chippie at Tyndrum! It was a good start to the season and good to check out a new crag which has great views down Loch Etive with guaranteed solitude. Toxic Brew felt fair at V,6 with the initial bulging corner and overhanging slot above being the standout sections of climbing. It was enjoyable although it is a little short at 70m lengths, especially so for the arduous approach. But Scottish winter climbing is nonsensical after all!

Lewis on the Aonach Eagach. A cracking day.
A couple days later myself and Lewis Ferguson headed up the Coe keen to make the most of the good start to the season. The uber classic Aonach Eagach was on the agenda. I've never actually been onto the ridge before, the closest being spectating the Glencoe Skyline from Am Bodach. We had a leisurely start leaving the car around the back of 9am before taking our time pulling up onto Am Bodach from Allt-na-ruigh. We passed a couple on the way up but didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day having the entire ridge to ourselves. Not knowing what to expect we carted up a short rope and some gear, although in the end this just stayed in our bags. We found the initial drop off Am Bodach okay to down climb although I'm sure if there was insitu tat in place we probably would have abseiled. 


Beautiful light through Glencoe from the Aonach Eagach.
The pinnacles were great fun and much more sustained than I was expecting. No show stoppers but nice sections of scrambling in fantastic exposed situations. The cloud parted for us leaving us with beautiful light throughout the Coe and west to the Ballachulish horse shoe. It would be great to get the ridge in proper alpine condition but it was just as fun snowed up. We found the slabby descent off of the penultimate pinnacle to be the most awkward, with the outcome of a mistake focusing the mind! We didn't fancy a mini epic so avoided the Clachaig gully descent and headed further onto the Pap before descending down. All in we were seven hours glen to glen but we took our time and it was a thoroughly enjoyable day out.


Looking to Bidean and SCNL from the Aonach Eagach.

The ridge in profile from the west.
A week or so into December I was back up in the Coe with Jonny. It was a beautiful crisp still starry morning which we enjoyed with a leisurely pace up into Stob Coire nan Lochan. There were a few teams leaving the car park but it was pretty empty for a weekend, the hoards were obviously in the Northern Corries - bonus! There was a lot of ice forming now lower down in the hills and we were anxious that the cracks may too be pretty icy, thankfully this was not the case. We were both keen on Crest Route having heard various glowing reports about it. I've not done masses in SCNL although I think the steeper the route is in there the better its quality. This was certainly the case for Crest Route! The route is nestled away over the west end of corrie to the right of NC Gully. It takes the striking steep corner groove system directly up the crest of the buttress. 

Seeing as Jonny got dibs on pitches last time round I elected to head off first so I could get a shot with the crux high on the route. The first pitch starts off pretty mellow with big turfy ledges which you step up before reaching a couple short steep cracked walls. The top wall gives you a wee warm up for things to come and you belay on the pedestal above. 

Jonny starting out over the inital slab on P2 of Crest Route.
The second pitch gets you into the meat of the route and provides superb sustained and steep climbing on secure hooks up the corner. There is an initial slab to negotiate but once cleared it provides enough edges to gander up on leading you into the corner proper. From here to the belay it is unrelenting hero hooks on the well featured Andesite, with some cool moves in-between (see Distilled with Andy Cave). Unfortunately for Jonny he was so immersed in the climbing that he climbed straight past the spike belay to the left. An awkward down climb resulted in a semi hanging belay immediately above the spike.

Jonny entering the steep corner on P2 of Crest Route.
This pitch provided a great warm up for the third pitch and I was glad to be able to get into the zone on it before the next lead. After exchanging gear I left the small stance and reentered the steep groove above. There was a thinner move leaving the belay but once committed back into the groove it was back onto good hooks and solid gear. I steadily moved on up the groove until reaching a couple of small loose blocks which could do with being frozen in. I tentatively pulled up on them to get established at the lip of the crux wall with my feet at the loose block.


Someone's been doing their yoga!
This is a brilliant position right on the crest of the wall with some nice exposure - thankfully there is excellent gear at chest height. The vertical wall above is a short corner with a uniform narrow crack running vertically down the back of it and a small ledge at its base. The crux is pulling over the lip and getting yourself established into the corner. I placed my tool into the wider crack running through the base of the ledge expecting a solid hook. None. After probing around I managed to get the head of my tool to seat if held correctly at the edge of the cracked ledge. There was a lot of play in it however so it was a delicate position but secure with good feet below. I searched for any taper in the narrow vertical crack above with my other tool but to no avail. In fact, I realised I was in a predicament as my pick weights were too wide for the crack! I gave the tool a short swing hoping to get the pick weights to bite a bit, then torqued the tool in place. Now it was just a case of committing through the sequence of moves I'd planned through. A high left mono point on the lip, bump the right up onto a decent edge all the while keeping the tension through both tools. I found myself still on and now having to commit fully onto the torque. I released the lower tool out, slowly stood up onto the feet pushing out on the right, while staring out the torque ensuring it was staying in place. I spanned as high as I could with the free tool and hooked a square cut edge at the top of the corner. This allowed me to bring the all important knee into play and finally stand up into the corner.

Higher on P2 Crest Route, with the steep head wall of P3 above.
Some more straightforward although not gimme moves followed before topping out at the huge freestanding boulder belay. It was a great pitch and I was chuffed to nail the moves after some initial probing. It was a laugh following the UKC thread, 'This ridiculous behaviour must cease forthwith', so I hope not to be crucified for saying so but I thought the moves felt pretty stiff at tech 6, harder than The Messenger in Sneachda which seems to be garnering a bit of a rep as a sandbag. 

Anyway, this is a top top route which can be climbed in a snowed up state and is pretty safe with superb climbing. Everyone should go do it.


Ben Ime. Check out ktlphotog

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