Church Door Buttress up on Bidean in Glencoe. Flake Route (IV,6) climbs pretty much straight up the middle through a series of chimneys and grooves

Church Door Buttress up on Bidean is fast becoming one of my favourite winter mountain crags. Being nearly 200 m high and with a base at over 850 m above sea level, its definitely one of Glencoes highest that’s for sure. Its shattered and vegetated corners, grooves and chimneys make for brilliant (if a little arduous) climbing and when you get a view, the vista out towards Loch Linnie is stunning. Whilst it’s elevation makes it a reliable venue, the approach isn’t the easiest and is certainly a bit of a lung buster. To be honest, that’s no bad thing really as it seems to do a good job at keeping the crowds at bay. Not even once have I had to share a belay at Church Door, or even a gearing up spot at the base! Yesterday was no different, which was a real surprise given the forecast of cold and clear weather as a result of rare and short lived ridge of high pressure. 

The snow line was ~600 m elevation and was mainly fresh powder. The storms of the days past were evident everywhere with watercourses all eventually succumbing to the cold being frozen solid by about 750 m. Where the wind had been pummelling the Coire waterfalls has clearly been blown upwards creating vast sheets of water ice on both riverbanks. 

The crag itself was absolutely plastered with rime ice and gully’s choked with a combination of new and old snow. There was also a lot of ice, but not enough to be a problem.

Our route choice was to be the left had start to Flake Route (IV,6), which is a line I’ve looked at before with Seb when we were up last season doing one of the gullys. The first pitch climbs a spectacular looking rift and is in a similar pedigree to Crypt Route (V,6), it’s neighbouring route which I did with Sol a few years back.

The sensational knee battering pitch on Flake Route (Picture courtesy of K. Applegate) 

Flake Route did not disappoint. It was an absolute gut busting thrutch with several occasions where full body wedging and udging was the only means of progression. Gear was hard won but generally good - although not all that necessary  given how much contact you were in with both walls of the chimney most of the time… The upper pitches were equally enjoyable and we finished up the notorious Raeburns Chimney which was a bit thin on snow on the lower slab which added to the excitement considerably! Having led it twice before I was more than happy to let Ben get on the sharp end for this one. I was expecting a spectacle of grovelling (which is how I remember it!) but Ben made short work of it climbing it fantastically. The last pitch was more thinly iced that I’d seen before, which made it more interesting than usual but also a bit more committing. Overall though a great route on a great crag. 

Ben putting in a final udge on the chimney pitch of Flake Route

Ben making short work of the notorious Raeburn's Chimney pitch where Flake Route joins West Chimney (V,7) and Crypt Route (V,6)

One thing to mentioned is that the day was almost marred by Ben dropping his belay jacket from his harness on the scramble up the gully. Somewhat astonishingly the jacket in its dry bag landed at the base of the gully balanced on a snow ledge for the whole day before we collected it on the walk out. Another inch and it would have continued to fall down the crag apron, probably never to be seen again. Luck was clearly with us yesterday. 

Where I found Ben's belay jacket. How it stayed here for 5 hours without being buried / blowing do the crag apron I'll never know! 

Another fabulous day in Glencoe

My orange jacket standing out like a sore thumb on Andromeda (photo credit James Rigby - thanks James!)

This winter has been rather other worldly. Unseasonably warm and dry conditions have been the norm, which has made getting the usual run of winter ticks somewhat more challenging.

Thankfully this weekend just gone a bit of luck with the forecast fortuitously timed with climbing plans conjured in Autumn of last year.

After an overnight dusting and dominance of a freezing northly gale James and I found the Lochain looking "lean" but with potential at least. It was James first ever winter foray so going easy probably should have been the order of the day, but a pedigree of climbing hard trad and ultra running meant I wasn't too worried about taking him to the deep end - certainly as far as northern cories climbing is concerned. 

The route we opted for was Andromeda (IV), a grove and corner line that breaks off from Milky Way and heads directly up through steep ground to join Central Crack Route. 

The start was awkward. The usual snow clad ledges and groves were replaced with icy rock, a dust of useless snow and turf frozen so solid even a sharp axe barely made a dent. The highlight was a horizontal crack a full reach past a small overlap made for a textbook torque and was protected by a rusty peg complete with frozen tat. What more could you ask for from a first pitch.

After some more textbook encounters - this time of the faffing and hot aches variety - we were ready to tackle the main corner line of Andromeda. The line is actually a series of three corners, with the one of the left being the true line, an option just right being supposedly slightly harder and then another corner way to the right, which looked a grade easier than the other two options. As we stood there being buffeted by the wind and snow, there was certainly a strong urge to take the easiest of the options - que climber on Milky Way who announces that the left corner is worth the effort and the true line. That settled it. Off we went up the left corner. 

It had torques, it had burl, and most importantly it had copious opportunities for full body wedging. Were I to do it again, I'd probably leave the bag at the base as it definitely made some of the chimneying sections harder than they needed to be. 

The last pitch was an easy romp up past the cornice. Unfortunately the weather the next few days wasn't up to climbing, but it was still great to have a catch up with James.