Sunday 2 January 2011

Tower Ridge





Adam, Anne and I went to Tower Ridge today. It was a bit cooler this morning but not quite as cold as forecast. Up on the ridge the snow is mostly very firm (the odd patch of crud under ice) and there is thin ice many rock steps. Cracks are full of verglas and many of the blocks and spikes are completely buried under firm snow ice. It was however quite a still (if grey) day with good views. There were teams visible in Gardyloo, Comb Gully and at least 2 parties on Point 5. The upper part of routes off of the upper part of Observatory Gully are still very poorly iced- nothing on Indicator Wall, Good Friday had some ice showing (enough to climb) but Smith's is still practically non existent. Round at the top of the Ciste there was far less rimeing on No. 3 Gully Buttress but there looked still to be a lot of verglass on the rocks- difficult conditions and some poor weather ahead.

Tower Ridge 2 Jan 10 from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great video Al. we've been chatting about doing the ridge this winter...the Gap still concerns me though! Happy New Year to you all. Trace x

Alan said...

Happy New Year to you too!. The Gap is fine; you can climb down, be lowered down, ab. down or swing down on a big handful of the usually in situ tat!
Al