Last weekend saw another return to winter action with both
days being pretty contrasting in terms of weather, route and everything really!
The first day myself and Sebastian decided to go for an early start and headed
all the way out to Hell’s Lum in the northern Cairngorms. Conditions had been
quite cold and snowy all week, which made for quite tough going out over the
plateau through deep drifts down into the upper Loch ‘An basin. Once at the
base we found the crag totally plastered with snow and ice, no doubt thanks to
the slight thaw that we had at the end of the previous week. Our route of
choice was the well-travelled and Cairngorm classic that’s Deep Cut Chimney
(IV,5). The route starts up the innocuous looking slabs before climbing the progressively
narrowing gully up to deep and foreboding the chimney proper. Although the wind
kept things entertaining by continually dousing us in mountains of spin drift,
the route was well iced in the low section, which made for some really enjoyable
and secure climbing. After some more battling we eventually made it to the exit
pitch, which makes an outrageously positioned traverse out from the back of the
chimney towards some chockstones on the edge of the buttress. The traditional way
to overcome this section involves back and footing, bum shuffling and whatever
other chimneying techniques you have in your tool box. Unfortunately for us,
the walls were totally plastered with a thick layer of spin drift and
completely obscured all of the holds needed for our escape. Thankfully after
quite a bit of digging we managed to find the line and escape to the top of the
crag, although unbeknown to us the weather outside has significantly
deteriorated since we’d started out, so no sooner were we out, we were almost
wishing we were back in again! Conditions on the walk back out continued to be
testing, going from white-out to black-out in seemingly no time at all. A
testing end to a testing day.
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| Hells Lum totally plastered in snow and ice. Just how we like it! |
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| Seb moving up the lower snow and ice gully just before the chimney proper |
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| The deep and spin drift lined upper section of Deep Cut Chimney. From here on the chimney is blocked, so a rising traverse is made up the walls, however as you can see this required a lot of excavation for us when we started heading that way! I ended up going slightly high initially but eventually managed to figure out the line. |
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| Seb escaping the chimney and entering the storm |
The next day was a total contrast. Calm and settled skies
which were almost totally cloudless. Following a cold night with some overnight
snowfall, Rob and I decided to take a chance and head over to Glen Clova and
see how some of the ice routes were forming up, specifically the classic grade
IV, Look C Gully (IV,4). The day started with a slight hitch owing to the
extensive overnight snowfall totally clogging all of the roads and lanes with a
mass of fresh powder, which was being re-shaped into impenetrable drifts by the
morning breeze. Eventually we made it to the car park and headed towards Coire
Fee with the first rays of the morning sunlight breaking through the snowy
canopy of the forest. It was about half way up we bumped into two climbers that
had already walked up into the Coire and decided that nothing was in and were
headed elsewhere. Not to be dismayed we went for a look anyway and boy am I
glad we did. I’ll admit that from afar the ice did look thin and perhaps
incomplete, however by the time we were at the base and up close, we could see
thick blue ice running the whole length of the climb. Not only this, but there
wasn’t another climber in sight!
