Monday 18 January 2010

Creag Meagaidh 26/01/10



With the weather forecasted to get worse from today onwards until the weekend, Lee and I decided to brave the walk in to Creag Meagaidh. Luck did not seem to be on our side and we made a rather late start at about 9:45am from the car park after a huge nail decided to come for a ride in the tyre! We made good progress into the climbs though, the path was in great condition and we were at the head of the loch after an hour and forty five minutes. With low level cloud and a strong wind scouring the Inner Coire, we decided to ditch our plans to climb The Pumpkin and headed up towards Easy Gully instead. Last Post looked in fantastic condition and I was keen to get on my first V,5 lead so we headed up towards that. Again the ice was in absolutely fantastic condition and the route isn’t intimidating at all so I jumped straight on. The climbing was never particularly difficult or steep but was sustained and by the time I stretched the ropes to the belay my calves were grateful for the rest! The climbing was very enjoyable and just kept on coming, there was some water dripping down the front of the ice which meant I got quite wet on the outside and by the time Lee came up to the belay I was grateful to get the belay jacket on. Having taken nearly two hours to get up this first pitch we were slightly worried about topping out in the dark and with low cloud potentially making finding the descent gully difficult. But we decided that it would be a shame to not top out as the climbing had been so excellent. It turned out our worries were unnecessary as the climbing above was much easier than the first pitch. We romped up the remaining three pitches stretching the ropes on each pitch to the top. The rest of the route gave good climbing and was a great way to finish after the first pitch of amazing climbing. With a quick descent down Easy Gully we were back at the rucksacks and soon back at the car. An absolutely fantastic route giving loads of interesting climbing throughout its long length, definitely worth the longer walk in!

No comments:

Post a Comment