Back down from the Ben

Well I left Torlundy at 1240 and got down to the Distillery at 1640. In between I had a nice brisk walk to the CIC hut and a chat with Tony and his partner who had experienced plenty of crud on a route on Moonlight Gully Buttress and Kenny who had had a good quick day on Ledge Route to celebrate his 50th birthday (dinnae worry mon- its the new 40 as I said!). Kenny is an old friend having trained and assessed me for my SPA many moons ago!
There is a good deal of ice smeared around the Ben, bits on the CIC hut falls and the Curtain (would want to be a little thicker before most of us wanted to climb them though). The higher IIIs and IVs like Glovers, Comb, South, Central (and North) and Central Trident are all white and show some ice. It was after 2 when I got into the Ciste via the icefalls to the right of the 'gulch' . So I nipped across to climb Garadh Gully which was sporting its usual two short pitches of Grade III ice to give me a little fun. There was running water behind the lower pitch (spurting out on me as I took my tols out). The Italian Climb looked sporting, Comb looked white and had footprints running into it. Up higher the harder routes on No.3 Gully Buttress looks good so there is plenty to go at on Ben Nevis- just watch out for the odd patch of freshly wind deposited snow. There is plenty of obvious scouring and visible windsalb to walk around.

Solo on Garadh Gully from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.