Ice is nice
The wind howled across the valley, and when the cars started turning around, I looked at my client, Mike, and shrugged my shoulders.
“They’ve shut the road again”. I said this with a hint of sadness, more than a touch of anger, and finally the shrug said it all. “Let’s see what tomorrow’s like?”
The Cairngorms are quite often like this, no skiing possible, so I suppose there is no incentive to keep the road open from drifting snow? However, they probably had a point today. Virtually sheet ice everywhere that sloped or was flat, flying rocks slamming backwards and forwards everywhere.
Storm damage at the car park was very real.
“Let’s try Annoch Mor?” The phone conversation that night meant an earlier start for me, but less of a drive for Mike. I didn’t mind as he had driven a fair way the day before, and then after a doss in his car.
More bad news. It was probably indicative of the icy weather that we could only gain access by the Gondola, they weren’t running the 4-man chair. That meant a long hike up past that top station, on again and up the ski run to the top of the tow, and then a short hike to the cornice. Several other teams were obviously considering going that way, but for a change, I decided to go in via the Lemming ridge. We always used to go that way before the ski complex was built and there were a couple of crampon marks here and there. Our route led diagonally round to, rather than directly up, the peak, so it was marginally easier. As we rounded the bottom of the lemming ridge, the mist clagged in and visibility shrank to zero. After traversing across the north side for what seemed like ages, I thought ‘blow this, I’m hitting the ridge again, so I know where we are’. Sure enough, a quick hike upwards brought us out into visibility and on the crest of the ridge. All we needed now was to follow the fairly easy-angled ridge up to the summit and across to East Gully. We left the ski sticks wedged against the ski shed and had some coffee.
One of the other teams were just visible down below the cornice, and their abseil rope soon snaked away from us as we kitted up for our descent. I belayed around the ice mushroom and lowered Mike over the edge. He got down about 20 meters, shoved his axe in and called me down. It wasn’t difficult and I quickly joined him. The situation had now vastly improved, very little wind this side, and we were soon right down and traversing across steep snow to our target - Tunnel Vision: Grade 3.
The big bay start was obvious and I was soon away up the snow to where it was steeper. Moving with me on the rope, Mike followed and when I reached a bulge I stopped and set up a belay.
First a straightforward step-kicking pitch, past some curious wire garbage, then steeper ground with a screw or two as protection. Coming up was the big pitch, 30 or 40 metres of steep and narrow gully climbing, slanting rightwards towards the easy slopes out of Morwind. This was what we came for, steep ice with, thankfully today, bombproof placements. I used a few pieces of rock gear (even a Friend 3) before the steep ice then it was wind-in screws all the way until the easier angled slope and two more good screws for the belay. The neve boded good for the usually horrific cornice job. Looking up while Mike had his first experience for several years of sustained ice work, I could see there were several options to escape at the top. Mind you, I thought, it always looks easy until you get there!
With Mike jubilant at his success, with only one footless moment where he was hanging on his tools, I moved off and soon had a good screw in. Running it out now, I became conscious of the angle more and more, and with 8 metres to go, finally gave in and placed the Deadman runner. Now relaxed, I shuffled up the last few metres and proceeded to hack out the slot that would take me through to the summit. Five minutes of slashing and it was done. I eased into my slot, hooked my tools over the top and….damm!
It was all deep soft snow there as well. I stepped back down for a breather and, when ready, and I knew what to do, I eased myself half-over the cornice on two tools, whipped one out and quickly planted it, shaft-down into the flat surface. Bombproof! The usual quick bellyflop and the welcoming belay post.
Mike made short work of the pitch and as we chatted to the other teams by the shed, I thought, not a bad day?
Not enough time for another route, so we cramponed down virtually all the way to the gondola station and our nice return journey down to the bottom station.
More of that - yes please!
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Tunnel Vision
Grade 3, 120 metres
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Smiler & Mike - 8th January 2009