Yet another route I've wanted to do ticked today. The objective was to give Gillian the opportunity to get some Grade IV leading in whilst taking 2 other climbers up a route. We'd been planning to go to the classic No. 6 Gully since earlier in the week- I've been wanting to do the route for a long time and this seemed like the right place and right time. Mike posted details of how good it was on his blog yesterday so we wern't surprised to see a couple of other parties with the same idea today. There was a Glaswegian/Aberdonian team and the other party was Bill, Billy and their mate. We fell in behind them having seen that everyone was moving at a good pace.The boys from glasgow/Aberdeen started from low in the gully with a couple of steps of III on good but thinner ice. The rest of us decided not to waster any time waiting and stepped in above at the first fat pitch (nice, long IV- a good lead by both Bill and Gill). Above this I took over our lead and did 2 pitches, the first a couple of short easier steps, the second short and steep but with great ice. Back over to Gill for another long varied pitch of IV to the fork. I went right above which took us to an easy descent right along the Rake.
We strolled down enjoying the windless views across to a sunny Aonach Eagach- watching climbers taking advantage of good looking ice on Stob Coire Nam Beith.
Top route, top day!
Oh, and Elliots is down but liable to collapse if anyone touches it yet- give it a few more days.
3 comments:
Somewhere I have a photo of Pete Thexton (from the 1980's). He had just climbed Eliot's when it fell down underneath him. Luckily all hs ice screws ripped without pulling him off.
Ian.
I remember speaking to a French Fuide who alsways said he preferred to solo pillars until above the point where a fracture could yank him off via any screws placed!
really an eye opener for me.
- Robson
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