Wilder weather in the west

Today Rich came out with Gordon and I to Ben Nevis. We were heading to The CIC Hut area to climb on the ice falls that both Mike Pescod and Alan Kimber have mentioned recently in their blogs as being in condition.

A friendly robin accosted us at Torlundy and shared my second breakfast on the walk through the forest. Once out of the trees the path was well drifted in from the recent fresh snow and great waves of spindrift were blowing around Carn Dearg and down the icefalls.

Undeterred we made 2 pitches of Grade IV out of one of the larger falls with Gordon placing and removing ice screws and helping build the belay. From the top we headed up to the base of Waterfall Gully. We climbed the first pitch which was not as fat as when I've climbed it before but gave excellent climbing. After an abseil we headed down before any further exfolliation by spindrift passing large numbers of slow moving deer on the way back to the car.