Richard, (and others) back for more fun
Richard, a nice team and some interesting routes and training
Thursday saw us on Fingers Ridge and in great conditions we soon caught up Alan Hailwood’s party, handing over several bits of gear unfortunately dropped or left behind by the two lads. Taking our time near the top proved advantageous. When I climbed the difficult and serious top wall, I was being watched by Alan and his team from the top of Red Gully (they even videoed me for Alan’s blog). A great route and Richard claimed it was one of his best days out.
Patey's Route Richard on the hard moves
The following day we were back up in the corrie and on Patey’s Route. I hadn’t done this since years back when I recalled some quite serious overhangs and in-situ gear to protect the harder moves.Today was a complete change. Ok, one overhang required a forceful pull over on axes but ot was much more straightforward and the rest of the gully was superb. The second bulge was avoided by a tricky rightwards move on iced-up rock, with a long bridge out and some great hooks to pull across on. We went down Aladdin’s Mirror and stopped to do both sides of Aladdin’s Mirror Direct. No need to go to the top so we abbed off the convenient tat on the stance. A very good day.
The weekend’s snowcraft course had Joss, Jason, Javeira, Phillipa and Anne booked on, so Richard stayed on to lend a helping hand and do some observation and photography.
A very successful course and the team really enjoyed learning all the aspects of safe movement in winter conditions. i felt a few more days on ice axe breaking practice wouldn’t go amiss, but I had to concede the hard snow/ice just below a soft layer of powder snow everywhere didn’t really allow a vast amount of speedy sliding to take place. Techniques had to be practised in a short time span and the deep soft snow cleared first before useful slides were to be made.The lenght of pre-cleared slide determined the amount one could go down, before ploughing into the deep barrier of soft snow.No danger of not stopping!
Snow belays were however excellent, the deadman going in a very long way before coming to a halt, and no amount of clients’ pulling could shift it. Needless to say, the ice axe belays were equally sound too, and at least the clients could actually see the belay, as opposed to the Deadman invisible under the surface.
We couldn’t avoid the most beutiful weather and a trip up the Goat track, across the icy plateau and down the Fiachill of Corrie Casse ended a great weekend.
Saturday night in the Cairngorm Hotel was as usal great fun as well.