Alan Halewood: Day 2 in the big white wonderland

Tuesday, 28 November 2017

Day 2 in the big white wonderland

Today I'd inveigled Jon into another esoteric (don't you love some words- let the 2nd half of it flip off of your tongue... no?) venue and we made the hike up to Mullach nan Coirean's easternmost coire. There are some steep routes on the main buttress and many years ago Jamie and I scraped up the only thing in nick that day a IV,4 called Kid Gloves. There is a very short Grade 3 scramble in the coire noted in Lochaber Scrambles and a couple of other ridges that Mike Pescod mentions in the Cicerone Guide might give sport. That's what I fancied today, pinning my hopes on an accurate freezing level.
Its a bit of a flog up the path cutting the zigzags next to the Allt a Choire Dheirg as forestry work has left lots of brashings and churned ground in the area but nonetheless just over 2 hours from the car and we had chosen the crest of the northern main buttress as our objective.
The rubble and flat turf wasn't great as we started so I suggested a steep groove full of thin flakes for some snowed up rock left of the crest (easy for me to suggest, Jon was leading). This of course turned out to be less positive than it looked from below but there was protection and Jon's incredible 'go-go' gadget leg levered him up onto a ledge 20m above me for him to endure an epic bout of hot aches as the rocks rimed in front of me. Not one to hog the glory he brought me up to get some climbing (and clearing) in up the last of the steeper ground. I headed on another 30m over a few small walls to where the angle really eased back enjoying plenty of better frozen turf and rimed rocks. We dropped the rope here and the last 80-100m of Grade II were very reminiscent of Golden Oldy's easier bits.
We topped out onto the ridge joining Mullach Nan Coirean to Stob Ban and were soon wading along its crest cursing as we stumbled on buried granite blocks. Finally rather than head up to descend Stob Ban's N ridge via its Grade I step we dropped into its NW coire, past the headwaters of the stream to traverse onto the ridge lower down pleased to be on more scoured ground now.
Has the ridge been climbed before? Quite possibly. The right hand side of the crest had an easier powder filled gully but our left hand start gave us some good sport and the feeling of the unknown that is what its all about-so I don't mind one way or the other.