With a very early alarm at 3:30am it would have been very easy to sleep in, but by the time I got to the North Face car park of Ben Nevis at 7am I was very glad I had hauled myself out of bed in Edinburgh! I had been planning on climbing with Adam (hughesmountaineering.blogspot.com) and Matt at Creag Meagaidh again, but with recent snowfall we decided to have a shorter day on the ice cascades above the CIC Hut instead. After a leisurely walk in and a stunning sunrise we were awarded further with an awesome looking pillar of ice. There was a team ahead of us, but with the sun shining and very little wind we were happy to wait. The route looked just as good up close, and had lots of features which looked like you could hook and step on; giving the impression it would be relatively easy, this was not the case (for me at least)! Adam led up the pitch in great style and Matt and I followed. The ice was pretty poor; in the sense that screws weren’t great below and through the crux, and it was very “dinner-platey.” This gave for quite insecure climbing as hooking hacked out holes definitely isn’t as inspiring as a solid thunk as your axe sinks into plastic ice; as per my last couple of routes! Coupled with sustained steepness and some awkward moves up the crux and across the small traverse above the crux, we were provided with much entertainment. The route was awesome and I would love to get on it on lead when its less hacked out, and the ice is more plastic. This definitely felt more like what I was expecting for V,5 ground. Absolutely brilliant fun though and a really cool looking route. After this I led up the shallow pitch of ice on the right of the rocks, giving about 50m of interesting grade III climbing to finish the day. A great way to end my recent climbing burst before heading out to France for a week snowboarding., more footage below again.
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