Cairngorm day

Another nice day in the Northern Corries!.

Neil on Claude on a belay stance.

Spiral Gully

With Neil and Kelvin we climbed Spiral Gully, conditions are sporting, turf well frozen and where ice exists , its good!

Northern Corries, Cairngorm

Conditions are thin but not so bad. Turf is well frozen but there is a lack of consolidated snow. Gully exits and scarp slopes of a Northerly aspect have pillows of poorly bonded wind slab and were worthy of respect and required very careful route choice today!

Chris in Crotched Gully. The steep traverse pitch going rightward and the top of the first snow bay was awkward and very thin today, much harder than it's grade.

North West

Quite a rewarming occurred over Scotland and the Cairngorms so we headed West. Snow tonight though, so fingers are crossed!

Central Gully

Chris climbing in Central gully , it's in thin conditions just now so gives some nice and interesting ice pitches.

Lurcher's Crag

This West-South-West facing cliff lies on the flank of the Lairig Ghru. We climbed Central Gully today which has two good ice pitches although the lower pitch had to be avoided today as the ice was very thin. The upper pitch was just OK. Its grade III with two stars. It's graded as a IV in the SMC Scottish Winter climbs guide which makes me feel a bit better as I thought it was a bit harder than a three today!
The route was first climbed by B. Taplin and O. Ludlow on the 4th March 1970 and is a nice adventure.

Corie an t Sneachda

Today we climbed in the Northern Corries of the Grampian mountains, otherwise known as the Cairngorms. These photos are of Chris on Spiral Gully with variations... its very thin but sporty, turf frozen with really very little consolidated snow. Some of my friends went over to Hells Lum and hoped to do Brimstone Grooves, but they found the ice very friable with water and slush below... so backed off! They reported that the cornices are large with lots of deep snow. On corrie rims there is lots of snow on lee slopes!