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0500 Dreams part briefly into wakefulness. Note that still cold, despite putting on all my jumpers last night.
0501 Notice that I am not in fact wearing any jumpers. Must have forgotten to put them on.
0502 Put on jumpers. Go back to sleep.
0600 Alarm goes off.
0602 Get out of sleeping bag, put on trousers and jacket. Roll up sleeping bag and camping mat, eat breakfast, brush teeth. Meanwhile Elsie brews coffee.
0630 Strike camp. Unable to see signs of snowmelt beneath where we'd slept. All hail the Airic.
0645 Depart car park. Drive past "No fires, no overnight parking, no camping" sign on our way out.
0700 Arrive in Coire Cas car park, already starting to fill up with skiers and climbers. Based on conditions, decide to change route to Milky Way (grade III, out of a possible XI). Text girlfriend to inform her of change of plans, so that our mangled corpses may be more easily located in the event of an accident. Realise that I've left thick mountaineering socks at home. Borrow novelty reindeer socks from Elsie. Put on boots, rucksacks, etc. Final check of avalanche forecast.
0715 Strip off as many layers as we dare, and head off down the path to the Northern Corries.
0719 Stop to strip off remaining outer layers.
0733 Stop to check map.
0759 The gathering brightness prompts a discussion about the difference, if any, between first light, dawn and sunrise. If the sun had risen, we wouldn't be able to tell - low cloud covers the whole sky.
0800 Phone alarm goes off.
0802 Unable to stand beeping any more, stop and take out phone from inside jacket from inside bag. Turn off alarm.
0810 Mist momentarily clears. Realise that we're about to drop down into the wrong corrie. Check map again. Adjust bearing.
0815 Find path.
0830 Arrive at base of Coire an Lochain. Gear up. Discuss route choice with other climbers: nobody else wants to do Milky Way. Eeeeeexcellent.
0845 Set off up 30-40 degree snow slope, traversing gradually leftwards. Unroped - no way to protect this section.
0930 Stop in the lee of a boulder to chat with another pair of climbers. They can't find their route either, but think we need to keep going left. Eat flapjack.
A pleasant chat out of the wind
0950 Realise that we've still seen nothing that looks remotely like the start of the route. Go to take out guidebook from top pocket of Elsie's rucksack. Guidebook not there. Remaining calm, tell Elsie to take off rucksack and look inside. Find guidebook. Still can't identify our location.
0955 Set off alone to what looks like a small cornice 20m uphill, in hope of a better view.
1000 Reach cornice, climb over. The other side looks remarkably like the Cairngorm Plateau: in other words, flat, covered in thick mist, and very windy. We appear to have unexpectedly reached the top. But what if it is snare and/or delusion? Walk 30m further. Still flat. Try grid reference app on phone. App crashes. Curse app author. Curse self for not bringing standalone GPS. Find different app that will give altitude reading. 1256m. Didn't realise plateau was that high. Walk back to cornice, shout to Elsie. Realise that there's no way she could have heard me over the wind. Consider downclimbing cornice. Decide against. Take out rope, and construct snow bollard to abseil off. Contemplate trusting life to snow bollard. Deepen snow bollard.
1015 Just as about to clip in to rope, Elsie appears: from my appearance and subsequent disappearance over the lip, she deduced that she was meant to follow me. Everything Worked Out Better Than Expected. Elsie comments on shallowness of snow bollard.
1020 Take bearing, head east to Coire an-t'Sneachda, keeping dimly-visible cliff-edge in view so we don't walk over it in the mist.
1030 Arrive at top of Goat Track, the standard descent route into Coire an-t'Sneachda in low-avalanche-risk conditions. Peer over edge to check steepness. The passage of many climbers and walkers has turned it into a staircase. Descend.
1045 Reach the base of Red Gully (grade II/III) and Goat Track Gully (grade II). Elsie reveals a longstanding desire to climb Red Gully, and the base of the route is currently unoccupied. Occupy base of route, and start sorting out ropes and belay.
1100 Rope up! At last.
1102 Elsie starts up first pitch of Red Gully. Initially easy, but with a long section of featured ice, thin for the grade, after about ten metres. She gets in a nut straight away, which falls out, another couple of nuts further up, and then nothing for the second half of the pitch.
Elsie leads the first pitch of Red Gully
1125 Elsie disappears from view.
1130 Rope stops moving. Call to Elsie to ask if she's "safe" (ie, clipped in to an anchor and no longer needing to be belayed). No response.
1135 Call again. No response. Rope still hasn't moved. Snow clumps bounce down. I conclude that she's digging a platform or something.
1140 Call again. Elsie shouts down that she's safe. Remove belay jacket, unclip from belay, briefly attempt to remove nut that I've been belaying off (which was in place when we arrived), give up, set off up route. First pitch is excellent fun to second, but I'd probably have found it pretty scary to lead.
1200 Arrive at belay. Cut small platform to stand on and rest calves, take gear off Elsie. Set out on pitch 2. Arrive after 5m at a fearsome-looking ice step, leading out of sight. Place ice-screw (my first ever - achievement unlocked!) just below it for protection. Discover on closer inspection that the step is actually fairly straightforward, and that beyond it lies an easy snow gully bounded by rock walls on both sides. Place a marginal sling on the left and a good nut on the right.
The ice step at the start of the second pitch
1210 Find small snow platform next to a couple of good gear placements. Decide to stop and belay. Place nut and sling, tie on, shout down that I'm safe, take in excess rope. Top not far, and pulling in rope reveals that I had half of it left: wonder if I could have made it to the top in one pitch. Place Elsie on belay. Wind picks up; curse self for not putting on belay jacket.
1225 Elsie arrives at my belay station. We comment on earliness of hour, and wonder if we'll have time for another route. Give protective gear to Elsie; she sets off up the third pitch.
1230 Elsie arrives at the top, after a long easy section and a final ice step that adds some amusement. She gives three tugs on the rope to signal that she's safe, and starts setting up a belay.
1240 Join Elsie at the top of the route. High five. Conclude that the last two pitches were slightly too long to do in one go. Flake and hank ropes. Start descent. Fantasise about hot chocolate.
1255 Back at start of Goat Track Gully and Red Gully. Ask queueing climbers which route they're about to start. They're all queueing for Goat Track Gully. Decide that we wouldn't be able to do the route and get down before nightfall. Continue descent into Coire an-t'Sneachda, passing various winter skills courses practicing ice-axe arrests and digging avalanche pits.
1315 Stop at the mountain rescue box to remove crampons/waterproofs/harnesses, eat lunch, and drink hot Ribena from thermos. Mmmm, hot Ribena.
Mmmm, hot Ribena
1326 Mist briefly clears, taking visibility above 50m for the first time all day. Snap photos.
A rare moment of visibility
1336 Head off down Coire an-t'Sneachda towards car-park.
1415 Arrive back at car-park, now completely full despite the comparatively poor snow coverage on the ski runs. Marvel at the determination of the Scottish skier. Remove boots and rucksacks. Text girlfriend to inform her of our continued survival.
1430 Go into ski-centre cafe and order the hot chocolate I've been wanting for an hour and a half, and also order chilli and chips. Taken aback by presence of meat in chilli when it arrives: had totally forgotten that normal people use meat when they make chilli. Reason that I've already sent the price signals to the agricultural-industrial complex by buying the chilli, and that there's nothing to be gained by not eating it. Eat the chilli.
1500 Start drive home.
1830 Arrive back home.
All in all, it's a pretty silly hobby. But I'll take the Cairngorms over El Chorro any day :-)
Edit: Reddit discussion thread.
0501 Notice that I am not in fact wearing any jumpers. Must have forgotten to put them on.
0502 Put on jumpers. Go back to sleep.
0600 Alarm goes off.
0602 Get out of sleeping bag, put on trousers and jacket. Roll up sleeping bag and camping mat, eat breakfast, brush teeth. Meanwhile Elsie brews coffee.
0630 Strike camp. Unable to see signs of snowmelt beneath where we'd slept. All hail the Airic.
0645 Depart car park. Drive past "No fires, no overnight parking, no camping" sign on our way out.
0700 Arrive in Coire Cas car park, already starting to fill up with skiers and climbers. Based on conditions, decide to change route to Milky Way (grade III, out of a possible XI). Text girlfriend to inform her of change of plans, so that our mangled corpses may be more easily located in the event of an accident. Realise that I've left thick mountaineering socks at home. Borrow novelty reindeer socks from Elsie. Put on boots, rucksacks, etc. Final check of avalanche forecast.
0715 Strip off as many layers as we dare, and head off down the path to the Northern Corries.
0719 Stop to strip off remaining outer layers.
0733 Stop to check map.
0759 The gathering brightness prompts a discussion about the difference, if any, between first light, dawn and sunrise. If the sun had risen, we wouldn't be able to tell - low cloud covers the whole sky.
0800 Phone alarm goes off.
0802 Unable to stand beeping any more, stop and take out phone from inside jacket from inside bag. Turn off alarm.
0810 Mist momentarily clears. Realise that we're about to drop down into the wrong corrie. Check map again. Adjust bearing.
0815 Find path.
0830 Arrive at base of Coire an Lochain. Gear up. Discuss route choice with other climbers: nobody else wants to do Milky Way. Eeeeeexcellent.
0845 Set off up 30-40 degree snow slope, traversing gradually leftwards. Unroped - no way to protect this section.
0930 Stop in the lee of a boulder to chat with another pair of climbers. They can't find their route either, but think we need to keep going left. Eat flapjack.
A pleasant chat out of the wind
0950 Realise that we've still seen nothing that looks remotely like the start of the route. Go to take out guidebook from top pocket of Elsie's rucksack. Guidebook not there. Remaining calm, tell Elsie to take off rucksack and look inside. Find guidebook. Still can't identify our location.
0955 Set off alone to what looks like a small cornice 20m uphill, in hope of a better view.
1000 Reach cornice, climb over. The other side looks remarkably like the Cairngorm Plateau: in other words, flat, covered in thick mist, and very windy. We appear to have unexpectedly reached the top. But what if it is snare and/or delusion? Walk 30m further. Still flat. Try grid reference app on phone. App crashes. Curse app author. Curse self for not bringing standalone GPS. Find different app that will give altitude reading. 1256m. Didn't realise plateau was that high. Walk back to cornice, shout to Elsie. Realise that there's no way she could have heard me over the wind. Consider downclimbing cornice. Decide against. Take out rope, and construct snow bollard to abseil off. Contemplate trusting life to snow bollard. Deepen snow bollard.
1015 Just as about to clip in to rope, Elsie appears: from my appearance and subsequent disappearance over the lip, she deduced that she was meant to follow me. Everything Worked Out Better Than Expected. Elsie comments on shallowness of snow bollard.
1020 Take bearing, head east to Coire an-t'Sneachda, keeping dimly-visible cliff-edge in view so we don't walk over it in the mist.
1030 Arrive at top of Goat Track, the standard descent route into Coire an-t'Sneachda in low-avalanche-risk conditions. Peer over edge to check steepness. The passage of many climbers and walkers has turned it into a staircase. Descend.
1045 Reach the base of Red Gully (grade II/III) and Goat Track Gully (grade II). Elsie reveals a longstanding desire to climb Red Gully, and the base of the route is currently unoccupied. Occupy base of route, and start sorting out ropes and belay.
1100 Rope up! At last.
1102 Elsie starts up first pitch of Red Gully. Initially easy, but with a long section of featured ice, thin for the grade, after about ten metres. She gets in a nut straight away, which falls out, another couple of nuts further up, and then nothing for the second half of the pitch.
Elsie leads the first pitch of Red Gully
1125 Elsie disappears from view.
1130 Rope stops moving. Call to Elsie to ask if she's "safe" (ie, clipped in to an anchor and no longer needing to be belayed). No response.
1135 Call again. No response. Rope still hasn't moved. Snow clumps bounce down. I conclude that she's digging a platform or something.
1140 Call again. Elsie shouts down that she's safe. Remove belay jacket, unclip from belay, briefly attempt to remove nut that I've been belaying off (which was in place when we arrived), give up, set off up route. First pitch is excellent fun to second, but I'd probably have found it pretty scary to lead.
1200 Arrive at belay. Cut small platform to stand on and rest calves, take gear off Elsie. Set out on pitch 2. Arrive after 5m at a fearsome-looking ice step, leading out of sight. Place ice-screw (my first ever - achievement unlocked!) just below it for protection. Discover on closer inspection that the step is actually fairly straightforward, and that beyond it lies an easy snow gully bounded by rock walls on both sides. Place a marginal sling on the left and a good nut on the right.
The ice step at the start of the second pitch
1210 Find small snow platform next to a couple of good gear placements. Decide to stop and belay. Place nut and sling, tie on, shout down that I'm safe, take in excess rope. Top not far, and pulling in rope reveals that I had half of it left: wonder if I could have made it to the top in one pitch. Place Elsie on belay. Wind picks up; curse self for not putting on belay jacket.
1225 Elsie arrives at my belay station. We comment on earliness of hour, and wonder if we'll have time for another route. Give protective gear to Elsie; she sets off up the third pitch.
1230 Elsie arrives at the top, after a long easy section and a final ice step that adds some amusement. She gives three tugs on the rope to signal that she's safe, and starts setting up a belay.
1240 Join Elsie at the top of the route. High five. Conclude that the last two pitches were slightly too long to do in one go. Flake and hank ropes. Start descent. Fantasise about hot chocolate.
1255 Back at start of Goat Track Gully and Red Gully. Ask queueing climbers which route they're about to start. They're all queueing for Goat Track Gully. Decide that we wouldn't be able to do the route and get down before nightfall. Continue descent into Coire an-t'Sneachda, passing various winter skills courses practicing ice-axe arrests and digging avalanche pits.
1315 Stop at the mountain rescue box to remove crampons/waterproofs/harnesses, eat lunch, and drink hot Ribena from thermos. Mmmm, hot Ribena.
Mmmm, hot Ribena
1326 Mist briefly clears, taking visibility above 50m for the first time all day. Snap photos.
A rare moment of visibility
1336 Head off down Coire an-t'Sneachda towards car-park.
1415 Arrive back at car-park, now completely full despite the comparatively poor snow coverage on the ski runs. Marvel at the determination of the Scottish skier. Remove boots and rucksacks. Text girlfriend to inform her of our continued survival.
1430 Go into ski-centre cafe and order the hot chocolate I've been wanting for an hour and a half, and also order chilli and chips. Taken aback by presence of meat in chilli when it arrives: had totally forgotten that normal people use meat when they make chilli. Reason that I've already sent the price signals to the agricultural-industrial complex by buying the chilli, and that there's nothing to be gained by not eating it. Eat the chilli.
1500 Start drive home.
1830 Arrive back home.
All in all, it's a pretty silly hobby. But I'll take the Cairngorms over El Chorro any day :-)
Edit: Reddit discussion thread.
Heh, no wonder
Re: Heh, no wonder
Re: Heh, no wonder
Re: Heh, no wonder
Re: Heh, no wonder
Re: Heh, no wonder
One question
Which parts of this are enjoyable? From the point of view of someone who’s never done anything like this, it’s very hard to tell (the amusing ice steps notwithstanding).
I realise that probably sounds abysmally rude, but it’s not meant to — it’s a genuine question, triggered by (a) thinking that the conditions in those pictures look unbearably cold and unpleasant, and (b) fear at your throwaway comments that you’re entrusting your life to a snow bollard (whatever one of those is). And on the assumption that there are parts which you find enjoyable, I’ll happily do my best to drum up supportive enthusiasm for your chosen hobby. ☺
Re: One question
Climbing the actual route yesterday was really good fun. You know that feeling when you're writing some code that's hard enough that you need to think about it, but not so hard that you get frustrated? Like that. This is not always the case; however, even if the climbing itself isn't much fun, you're usually left with a huge sense of achievement afterwards. Taking on a difficult challenge and overcoming it with skill and determination: I'm sure you can relate to that.
The photos make the day look grimmer than I remember it being (lens fog, perhaps?). Remember that we were kitted out for the conditions. Better weather would have made for a better day (one on which we found our intended route, for a start!) but once you're on the route you don't actually need to see very far. It would have been a pretty uninspiring day if we'd just been hillwalking, to be sure.
There are some people who actively seek out mortal danger; I'm not one of them. All in all, I'd prefer it if the chance of dying on the mountains were actually zero, rather than just low - statistically, the most dangerous part is driving there and back, but a few people do die climbing (and walking!) in Scotland every winter. I try to do everything I can to continually upgrade my skills and safety awareness - I'm going on a course on Thursday to fill in some gaps in my knowledge, for instance.
A snow bollard is one of these (http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~veenstcn/Whitemantle2008V1/WhitemantleV1/Pages/95.html), by the way. Mine wasn't so deep as that, because the snow was really hard and a pain to cut through, and I was trying to work quickly because I was conscious of Elsie getting cold and in an information vacuum. Of course, the fact that the snow was so hard meant it didn't have to be so deep... I think it would have held, but in future I'll go for more of a margin of safety.
Re: One question
* Actually, the scary errors are the tiny ones - often navigational - that kick off a train of cascading errors that kills you hours later. Every climber knows the story of the 1936 attempt on the Eiger Nordwand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Hinterstoisser).