With the extensive thawing and rain I had thought winter was coming to an end; but the forecast had been showing slightly colder conditions this week and things have been climbed, so I headed up to Ben Nevis to have an optimistic look around. After stopping for some night photos at Rannoch Moor I arrived at the North Face carpark around 11:30pm and got a few hours sleep before meeting Steve and heading off around 5:30am. 
After some sustenance at the CIC we decided on Italian Right Hand as this had been climbed yesterday. Steve quickly dispatched the first pitch and then I went on up the second pitch; this was mostly hooked out giving easy climbing, I finished with a slightly more difficult and direct line to the belay on fresh ice which was great. Steve then led up the next pitch of easy ground before we abbed back down the line from the plentiful tat. After some lunch the clouds had blown in as forecast, so we decided to stay lower on the mountain and avoid any potential difficulty in trying to locate Number 4 Gully in near zero visibility. On the approach there was an obvious section of single pitch waterfall ice which looked great but had a big crack across it, after speaking to a party who had top-roped it we decided to head down there. We abbed into the line and after doing three laps on the steep detached pillar I was done, and then brought Steve up with some entertainment.
The climbing was fantastic and it would have been a great, but hard, lead; but with the crack being around 7m up and with the steepest climbing below, it would have been very bold. As the clouds closed in further we headed back down to the car after a good 11 hours on the hill. Hopefully the forecasted cold and settled weather will arrive next week and continue winter for a while yet.
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