Not a day for routes...

Day 2 of my Intro. to winter Lead Climbing with Glenmore Lodge today. Having no wish to tangle with anything orange or yellow for that matter we stayed out of the Coires and off of the climbs today. We did however go to the Ciste Crag the top of which is below 700m. The ski road opened late giving us time to sort a rack and look in more detail at the guys wants from the week.
The Ciste crag was buried in snow as expected and always needs a lot of care as it is VERY loose. The extreme right hand side offers some short climbing lines but most things are much harder than they appear from below. The 2 Kierans led a 2 pitch line at about II getting lots of practise organising themselves, placing gear, managing stances and clearing huge amounts of snow all whilst well bundled up for winter.
1 flock of about 15 ptarmigan observed today- the most I've seen in one place at one time and also 2 white hares.

 Look out- coming through!

That was harder than it looked:-)

 Clearing

 Come on up!

 Ptarmigan

 On the lead

 In the groove

 Seconding

 Sam and team on the deceptively easy looking slab- its desperate

Kirk and team just 40m below us... yes... really... they are there!