Sunday 18 January 2015

That's better! Great on Golden Oldy

Nice to be be back out and not fighting the weather. Ruairidh, John and I were on Aonach Mor today. Lots of other folk had seen the avalanche forecast and also decided that the west face would be a good option so as we left the ski centre we were at the front of a long crocodile of folk.
I decided that life would be easier for us at the front of the queue so kept the foot down and broke trail all the way to Golden Oldy. This was pretty knackering but gave us a clear run up one of my favourite mountaineering routes in fair weather- well done John and Ruairidh for rising to the challenge of following me! Ken was close behind with his team and there were more following him as well as multiple pairs trying to figure out who was on Western Rib, who was on Daim Buttress and who was just having fun on a random piece of mixed mountainside!
Plenty of evidence of cross loading in the stream gullies that carve down this face gave us something to talk about and several times as we moved onto the side of the route I kicked of small slabs that sheared easily.
Nice to come down through a busy Nevis Range with lots of folks enjoying the great conditions.
 At the front of the crocodile of climbers
 Low on the route
 Getting higher
 The Allt Daim below
 Half way
 Ken and team below
 Narrower...
 Very narrow!
 Last bit
On the way down

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Had a great day, thanks again! John

Alan said...

A pleasure to meet you John.