Mountain Diary and Conditions

The snow has continued to fall and be redistributed by the winds, creating challenging conditions with regards to both avalanche hazards and just getting around. Yesterday, the guys led themselves up School House Ridge on Sgorr Bhan and along the way, we looked at using the rope effectively on mountaineering terrain. There were some sizeable accumulations of snow even on the crest of the ridge and making progress was quite tough at times. From the top of the ridge, we visited the summit of Sgorr Bhan, before descending the north ridge (and dropped into Coire Riabhach at the col before Beinn Bhan).

Today, we opted for Eastern Slant on Far East Buttress on Aonach Dubh, which required a fair bit of wading to get to the base of the crag as well as to climb the route. Despite the volume of soft snow, the snowpack was stable, just hard work to travel through! The climbing itself on Eastern Slant is brilliant, with three very varied pitches and good gear throughout. As we descended back to the valley, the weather deteriorated and turned to wet sleet. Arie and Will have had a good cross-section of Scottish winter climbing this week and have definitely started to appreciate the ever-changing challenges that Scotland can throw at you.

New Heights – Active Brands

Day 4 with Nick and Chris and we headed back up Ben Nevis with our sights set on Castle Ridge, which Nick has done before, but as a bare rock route. Today, conditions were at the opposite end of the spectrum with so much snow on the ridge, far more than I've ever encountered up there.

Many of the shorter rocky steps were completely buried, allowing for quick progress and the two main crux pitches were both much shorter than usual. Still, the volume of snow only added to the atmosphere and things felt almost Himalayan at times! We descended the NW flanks of Carn Dearg, which gave a quick and straight forward descent.

The ice is forming well up there, routes such as Norwand and Boomer's Requiem aren't far off being climbable. We'll see another brief thaw tomorrow, before a return to cooler conditions and yet more snow on Sunday and into next week. The second half of this winter is certainly making up for the first half and turning out to be very snowy and icy.

I've also uploaded an amazing shot of Buachaille Etive Mor, taken last Thursday by Dynamic Scotland Photography. Incredibly, Sylvan took it whilst I was topping out of Shelf Route and was able to pick me out. Head over to his page to see more of his excellent work!

Ken is brilliant at keeping us up to date with his Jedi guiding, instruction and climbing skills, and he is a brilliant inspiration to the rest of team, if only every Boss was such an inspiration!

West Coast is a team of associate guides and instructors going out everyday either for pleasure or helping people achieve their aims and objectives, we are here for everyone no matter what your objective is. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting a small round up of what some of our team have been doing from ascending The Ben to personal adventures.

We have groups ascending The Ben most days and weeks, Lucy Wallace Winter Mountain Leader tells us about her ascent this Monday, “ ! 900/ 3 . , .”

Dave was out in Stob Coire Nan Lochan on Monday with Tom for his third winter climb, Copy Tweet
“ , , , 5 , 5 .”

Dave was also out teaching some winter skills to some Snowboarders who are hoping to move away from the piste and into the mountains, in some brilliant learning conditions.

Many of our team have been getting out over the winter enjoying their days off, Niels can’t help himself but get out on his days off for some spindrift exfoliation on North Buttress " , "

Michael Jeffers ascended Curved ridge earlier in the season under copious amounts of powder “ , ' ”

If you want to see and hear more from the team please Like the post. Thank you.

www.westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk/

Ltd

Back on Ben Nevis today, this time with returning clients, Nick and Chris. We made a bee-line for The Curtain, which was a wee bit thin, but very much climbable and good fun. Just don't expect much decent protection!

We carefully descended back down Ledge Route and No. 5 Gully to see a steady queue forming on The Curtain and Curtain Rail. I decided to have a quick look at Right-Hand Chimney, which from below looked well iced up and so we climbed that as our second route of the day. The guidebook states III,4 and elsewhere, IV,4. I would say more like VI,5 in current conditions (I'm not sure it's ever much easier), with quite steep, technical climbing and very little gear, but with good axe placements throughout. That said, the second, main pitch was excellent and gave Nick and Chris a great flavour of icy mixed climbing.

The winds weren't too bad, however, there was an awful lot of graupel coming down at times! We could see a couple of teams cautiously approaching Gutless and Vanishing Gully (I.e. roped up). One team also ventured up high and climbed Thompson's Route.

Night ascent of Thompson's Route, Ben Nevis
The weather is proving to be a tricky beast at the moment, with high winds and thaws keeping us on our toes. However, the forecast for last night was one of a return to cold and clear conditions and so at 11pm, Neil and I found ourselves heading up to the north face of Ben Nevis to get an adventure in and to be down well before the arrival of Storm Dennis.

As expected, it was remarkably clear and calm as we made our way up to No. 3 Gully Buttress, where we had our sights on Thompson's Route, which felt like the right length and difficulty for our night ascent. It was quite eerie walking into Coire na Ciste in the dark, but if anything, time seemed to fly by quicker than a more regular daytime ascent.

The route was chocked full of snow-ice, allowing for fairly efficient climbing, even if it was completely useless for ice screws. From the top of the route, we joined the direct finish to No. 3 Gully Buttress, which was unrecognisable from a couple of weeks ago. Whereas then, it was very rocky, last night, it was essentially a steep snow-ice slope, with very little rock on show.

As we topped out, it was so clear that we could easily see the moon and stars, surrounding hills and the bright-lights of Fort William, which guided us back down the Red Burn.

It was a brilliant adventure and whilst I don't think I'll be making night climbing a regular thing, it's great to do once in a while.