Beinn Trilleachan

After the last few outings it was nice to go out for a walk

We parked up at the far West end of Glen Etive and set off up the steep slopes to teh first top of this brilliant Corbett. The famous Etive slabs were visible on the sheer South easterly face of the hill and as a climbers playground I have a feeling I'll be back in the summer. The weather threw everything she had at us on the ascent with biting wind, hail, and wet snow but we battled on over two minor summits before the summit proper at 839meters (76 meters below Munro status). Since the start position is sea level many Munros actually require less climbing than this and it does feel like a good work out.

On teh descent the weather rewarded s with our perseverance and opened up to blue skies and stunnin views looking down the sheer drop of the slabs to the car sitting 2500ft below us. Photographs just cant depict that massive sense of open space a few meters in front of you.

The lower slops were descended in sun with jackets gloves, hats and so packed away in our sacks.

The first time I've set out to climb a Corbett and if this is anything to go by my chances of completing the Munros has just vanished. I'm not interested in slogging up a boring lump of a hill because it's over 3000ft if there are gems like this lying nearby.

West Gully, Beinn an Dothaidh

A relatively luxurious meeting time of 8am and John, Chris and I headed off to climb West Gulley of Beinn a Dothaidh.

The climb is listed in the guide as a Grade 1 and so we knew it wouldn't pose any difficulties. We parked at Achaladair Farm and walked up to the mouth of the corrie and donned our gear, John quickly realising that getting geared up needs familiarisation with your own equipment and needs practice in itself. With John still faffing Chris and I headed up to check out the snow condition on the slope of the gully. The snow seemed stable and well packed with the current bitterly cold northerly wind and we were happy to proceed, John had started ascending the gentle slopes below us so we built a first belay for practice as we waited. John arrived in a bit of a strop that we'd buggered off without him but soon calmed.

We then proceeded to multi pitch up the gully, first me leading, then Chris. The wind funneled through the gully was whipping spindrift upwards and around us, visibility came and went and made communication tricky, all good practice.

After a few hours the novelty of multi pitching a simple gully was waring off as a bloke soloed past us and looked over as if to say "why are you lot making such a meal of an easy gully?"

Eventually we topped out and while John and Chris repacked the gear I nipped over to "bag" the summit proper since Chris and John had already ticked it in February. As we readied ourselves for the descent the conditions changed and we were in a whiteout, compass bearings were taken with difficulty since the bezel of the compass was frozen but accurate enough to get us on the right descent track. I've never had my compass freeze before and along with my frozen water bottle (in my rucksack) and John's fruit frozen solid we realised just how cold the day must have been.

We dropped out of the summit whiteout and stopped to look back at the frozen North face of this amazing mountain. A bit like Ben Nevis, the usual route bypasses a stunning and much more impressive hidden North face.

We vowed to return but I think a fair bit more practice is needed before we climb anything more technical. It's also clarified in my mind that climbing in anything but a standard roped pair is time consuming and increases complexities and should be avoided at this stage on anything but simple training days.

Return to Tower Ridge in Winter

Tower Ridge is winter was one of those "must do" things ever since I'd climbed it with Alex and in the Autumn, I didn't really realise what a different beast she is in her winter clothes.

The alarm went off at 3:15am on Sunday morning and by 5:30 I'd met Chris and we met up with Alex, Alan & Bryan at Crianlarich. A couple of hours later and we were walking into Coire Leis and pondering the day ahead.

We geared up at the CIC hut and hooked round to the East side of the Douglas Boulder and set off as a 3 and a 2 up the gulley behind it to reach the crest of the ridge. We climbed the 20m gulley which was pretty tough in itself then onwards to the Little Tower which was far more difficult than I expected in winter conditions. We pressed on to the Great Tower and to the Eastern Traverse which was the worrying part of the day. Alex lead off on the tiny ledge with a gaping drop behind and placed some gear. One by one we followed carefully round the exposed flank and breathed a sigh of relief on the far side.

Then she turned nasty

Round the corner we soon bunched up on narrow and exposed ground facing a really tough climb to gain the top of the tower. Alex had lead up but, out of sight and out of communication it was impossible to know if he had a good belay for the exposed and bulging ice overhand we now had to climb. Alan was finding it tricky and so let me push on to tell Alex what was happening since he was sitting above with no idea what was going on below as time passed, light faded and it got colder and colder. With a couple of good axe placements and a heart in mouth move I clambered over the overhang trying not to think of the consequences of the axe popping and onwards to meet Alex. We then both kept the ropes of the following climbers extremely tight and one by one they joined us on the crest.

It was now 6:30 and we still had the infamous Tower Gap to negotiate. One by one again, with the clag rapidly descending and the light fading we dropped into the gap and "dry tooled" our way up the far side to relative safe ground. From then it was a simple 60m up to the summit and even though it was now dark and heavily clagged in, I certainly was glad to be off the ridge.

Headtorches on and gear stowed we set off following a bearing to find the pony track. We walked down to the halfway lochan and then cut over back to the golf course car park where we parked the cars. A heavy eyed drive back to Glasgow sponsored by Red Bull and back in the house just after midnight.

Long day and one I'll remember for a long long time