Wednesday 16 December 2015

Crampons not required

Today I went out with Dave. We knew it would be wet, we knew it would be soggy, we went out anyway just for the hell of it. Wanting a quick day we headed to Glencoe. We had talked about Curved Ridge but also the possibility of the thaw causing heavy wet avalanches out of the basin. As we came through Glencoe village we began to guess that that might be not as much of a problem as expected because already the snow cover was drastically reduced.
Curved Ridge was sopping wet, there is still snow on ledges and in gullies and hollows but the cover is much less than 24 hours ago. We didn't need crampons and barely needed an axe. In fact I only put gloves on to come down Coire na Tullaich (again the reduced snow cover meant it was easy to descend avoiding and hazard of we snow slides).
Despite pretty new waterproofs my pants were wet. In fact there weren't many patches that weren't wet. It was one of those days that would defeat ANY 'waterproof' combination.
Still we got our leg stretch in and were car to car in under 4 hours, glad to escape the ming.
 Dave embracing the ming
Me... wet...
 Dave remaining ever psyshed
 Into the grot
Dave still smiling



 Dave... i'm beginning to wonder if he has sado-masochistic tendencies?
Me... a bit more restrained
 Dave and guess what?
 Dave has a dry patch
 These gloves were in my pocket- I didn't even wear them and they are soaked!

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