Minus 3 Gully & Gutless, Ben Nevis

We're back up at the CIC Hut for the week, running our second and final hut based climbing course of the season. With a deteriorating forecast, we made an early start and climbed Minus 3 Gully, which after the milder temperatures of yesterday, had refrozen well through the night. As we were abseiling down Slingsby's Chimney, the winds picked up a notch.

I then took Phil and Shaun round to Gutless, which was well sheltered from the increasing winds. The route was mostly well frozen, but some of the snow-ice on the upper groove was a bit crusty and took a bit of care. The vegetation was still rock hard.

From the top of Gutless, we traversed over to the SW Ridge and then descended the West Gully of the Douglas Boulder, which was starting to fill up with fresh wind-blown snow. Other teams on The Curtain, Vanishing Gully, Minus 2 Gully, SW Ridge of the Douglas Boulder and Fawlty Towers.