Scottish Winter Climbing 27-28 January 2012
Ed Mitchell
Having a free weekend, I scooted up to Scotland last Thursday with Adam Booth, with a plan to spend Friday and Saturday climbing, before attending the closing party of the BMC International Climbing meet at Glenmore Lodge, and coming back on Sunday.
The weather forecast looked exciting – a large area of high pressure had parked itself over the UK, promising cold temperatures and clear skies. The avalanche forecast was low, no new snow had fallen for a few days, and a cycle of freeze and thaw had stabilised the snow pack. We had the whole of Scotland at our fingertips – everything was going to be in reasonable condition!
We decided that this was the weekend for trying new venues, so we decided on one of the less well frequented crags in Glencoe, Church Door Buttress on Bidean Nam Bian. This lies just to the west of the more famous Stob Coire nan Lochan, but has some brilliant looking routes, some of which make the most of the natural arch feature that straddles the crag at two-thirds height.
A licence endangering drive saw us up at the Clachaig Inn just in time for last food orders, and then we spent the night in the van at the foot of Glen Etive before setting off at 7 a.m. the next morning on the two hour walk up to the crag. With the snow line at about 300m, most of the ascent was through energy sapping snow, but we were rewarded with beautiful views of the Aoanch Eagach ridge, the Mamores, and Ben Nevis peaking out above a beautiful cloud inversion. The crag loomed large above us for much of the walk in, so at least route finding was easy. The rocks were plastered with rime, the ice in the cracks appeared reasonable and it looked like we were in for a special day’s climbing.
Adam had decided that in such conditions it was time for him to try and lead his first grade VII route, things were unlikely to ever get more perfect to push your grade. Grade VII is two grades harder than anything I had climbed, and three above my lead grade, so it looked like I was going to be in for a lot of swinging around on the end of the rope and Adam would get an exciting chance to haul me up the route. I was rather apprehensive at the bottom. The route we chose was called ‘Un Poco Loco’ – a little crazy – first climbed by Andy Cave (when he was ‘Learning to Breathe’ presumably) in 1990.
Adam climbing up to the arch on Un Poco Loco.
The first 30m pitch took Adam two hours to lead, and an hour for me to follow. To my surprise, I didn’t fall off any of the moves, but it was some of the hardest climbing I have ever done. Most of the climbing was by using small hooks for the tip of the axe, and front points balancing on the small ledges and bottom of thin cracks. I was grateful for the dry tooling practice I’ve been getting in! Rests were few and far between, and I reached the first belay ledge (1 foot wide x 3 feet long) somewhat pumped, and pretty uncertain that I could continue. Adam was fairly resolute though, and decided to quest on to glory.
The second pitch took us up a shallow corner through some gently overhanging terrain and then underneath the natural arch to a belay on top of it. Again, the climbing was hard, but I surprised myself by not falling off anything, although there were a few sketchy moments! Going through the arch, and back and footing up it was a special moment which I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
We reached the summit just as the sun was setting, but because I had left my headtorch in my sack at the bottom of the route we didn’t linger, and we scuttled off down the easy descent slopes back to our kit. We’d been climbing for nearly 8 hours, and I was whacked. We had a sandwich before heading down to the van, getting to the Clachaig for another meal at about 8 pm. After bolting down a burger, we drove over to the Cairngorms.
Saturday we both felt tired, so opted for the easy approach walk into Coire an t’Sneachda. I’d wanted to climb ‘The Message’ on the Mess of Pottage, at IV,6, but there was a queue on it, even at 8 a.m. We moved 30 m to the right and got on the ‘Direct Start to Hidden Chimney’, which was a bit easier at IV, 5. This gave 40m of entertaining climbing, hard at first, but well protected, and then easier but a bit more awkward and nothing like as strenuous as the day before. We followed this by moving together up Hidden Chimney (II/III), taking a right hand variation to keep out of the way of the queue in it.. We were back at the bottom of the crag for midday and decided to do another route. The Message still had climbers on it, and in any event I was feeling like I’d almost had enough of climbing for the weekend, but Adam decided that the Grade VI ‘Droidless’ was just the thing to do, so I followed him up the three pitches of slightly disjointed climbing. The top pitch was particularly exciting, Adam nearly fell off the crux and when it was my turn the ropes got jammed, so I ended up climbing the crux on a slack rope with a mix of indifferent hooks, poor torques and a body absolutely chock full of adrenaline. Thankfully the top out was a little easier, and again, the views across the Cairngorm plateau were absolutely breathtaking.
First Pitch of Droidless
We were back at the van for 7, and after a quick curry, headed up to Glenmore lodge for the closing party of the BMC International Meet. The details are a little hazy, but between the drinks I met a great selection of climbers from all over the world – I spoke to people from Germany, the Czech republic and Ireland, as well as chatting with the UK hosts. The meet was really well attended, approximately 40 international climbers of all ages and abilities, and a corresponding number of UK hosts – I’m sure there will be a report in Summit or on the BMC website in due time! Interestingly, Andy Cave was there, but I didn’t get a chance to speak to him.
Sunday was spent on the road, the 420 miles speeding past as we drove back down with happy memories of a great weekend.
Church Door Buttress on Bidean Nam Bian
