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