Mountain Diary and Conditions

With a rather sustained thaw in progress, we opted for ridges to stay out of the way of falling debris. Phil and Diggy made a quick ascent of NE Buttress, which they reported to be in reasonable condition, although the 40 Ft Corner was quite bold, with a thick layer of refrozen (and slowly thawing) rime ice.

Myself, Linnea and Andrew were on Tower Ridge and found it to be in good nick as well, with enough firm snow along the crest. The Little Tower was still fairly well banked out and the Leaning Block Chimney is still buried.

We topped out in good time, descended Coire Lies, before Andrew and I nipped up the SW Ridge of the Douglas Boulder, which is largely snow free now.

We're up at the CIC Hut on Ben Nevis this week, and thought we should make the most of the cooler weather, by squeezing a route in this afternoon. Phil took Devon and Diggy up the East Ridge of the Douglas Boulder, whilst I climbed Fawlty Towers with Linnea and Andrew.

Fawlty Towers was fairly icy in places, but a bit soft in others. We descended Tower Ridge and abseiled back into the Douglas Gap.

The cliffs of Ben Nevis are plastered in snow and rime ice, but getting around is going to prove a bit tricky for the next couple of days due to the sheer volume of snow. There are also some huge cornices over a number of routes on northerly through to easterly aspects at the moment.

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Today, I was out with Rob and we headed to Stob Coire nan Lochan with the aim of climbing Raeburn's Route on Central Buttress. We broke trail into the corrie, which with a slight rain crust was quite hard work this morning. With the temperatures having largely been below zero above 900m recently, I thought that the first pitch, which relies heavily on frozen vegetation, would be good to climb and even up close, things looked frozen. It quickly became apparent that both the snow and the vegetation were far from frozen and that things were quite soggy beneath the surface, so I retreated and instead we gained the second pitch of Raeburn's Route from NC Gully.

There's plenty of snow on the route, unfortunately, very little of it any use for axe placements. Ok for feet though. After the first pitch of Raeburn's Route, the route is on rock, so despite the snow being largely cosmetic, the route was still very climbable, it just took a bit of effort and time to ensure that the axes were going to stick.

The firmest snow we encountered all day was on the western flank of the north ridge, where it was very icy for a while. It may be the firmest patch of snow/ice I've walked over this winter. Very quiet on Stob Coire nan Lochan, with a couple of teams on Dorsal Arete and a couple of skiers earning their turns.

I was out with Blair, who joined us on one of our winter mountaineering courses earlier this season. Blair wanted to explore the type of ground he might consider doing by himself, rather than as a pair, so we headed to the Mamores, where we initially made an ascent of Stob Ban via its north ridge. From there, we descended the east ridge and made an ascent of Sgurr an lubhair (does anyone know why first letter of lubhair isn't in captials?).

From there, we crossed the Devil's Ridge and made our way up to the summit of Sgurr a'Mhaim before descending back down into Glen Nevis.

Not much need for crampons today, as the snow was mostly quite soft. Great views to be had for much of the day, with clear views over to Glencoe, the Aonachs and the rest of the Mamores.

With plenty of overnight snow having been brought in on strong westerly winds, Neil and I made our way round to the Summit Ribs on the West Face of Aonach Mor, which as expected, was quite scoured. There, we climbed Daim Buttress, a route that gets far less attention than it deserves. We weren't complaining though, as we had it all to ourselves today.

The first couple of pitches are up steep vegetation, which was frozen enough where needed. After that, the route steepens and provides a few excellent pitches of mixed climbing at about III,4 before easing off. Neil enjoyed the climbing and felt it to be a better route than Western Rib and Castle Ridge! The climbing is certainly more sustained and more balanced than on Castle Ridge.

There were a couple of teams on both Golden Oldie and Western Rib, but other than that, it was a quiet day on the West Face. We had good views over to Ben Nevis and the Mamores until we topped out, at which point the weather closed in.