Ben on the second pitch of White Shark

I had an early alarm this morning; which considering my circadian rhythm usually has me stirring from 6 am can only mean one thing. Winter climbing day! 

It’s taken the sacrifice of a days precious leave, but finally the stars aligned with opportunity and required conditions colliding for the first time this season. “Requires conditions” is perhaps an exaggeration though as actually the current situation in the mountains is pretty bad, with unseasonably mild January weather stripping snow and ice from all but the highest places. With this in mind, we opted to go to Annoch Mors east face which is a reliable venue given the elevation of the crag base at a little over 1000 m. 

The day didn’t start overly well either. We missed the early gondola by 5 minutes (which forced a 45 min wait outside the shut cafe) and after eventually reaching the crag, was followed by starting up a route which had a bit too much wet turf and drippy ice to be justifiable. After a bit of head scratching we headed to a higher section of the crag and opted for a lean looking White Shark. The route was really great, if a little stiff for IV,4 but still provided good climbing on mostly solid ice. The difficulty was certainly put into perspective by watching a local guy solo the route before we started up though.. 

The forecast looks like it goes warm again from tomorrow and staying that way. It’ll be a few weeks before I can get out again anyway so hopefully things pick up soon or this really will be a dreadful winter. Given the warmer weather, If you do head to this crag watch out as the cornices were absolutely huge, and not a thing to be underneath when they start thawing… 

A revelation from todays drive to the crag… what a game changer