The walk in today was quite different. The quad chair was open (thanks Nevis Range) but there was still plenty of trail to be broken over to the Aonach Mor/aonach Beag col and we were warm and sweaty long before we got there.
The ice looked fat, blue and rather steep. We'd seen Scott heading at the head of a few teams heading towards Aonach Mor and hearing where we were going he grinned muttering about a need for sharp tools and big arms- he wasn't wrong!
I led a long fun pitch of III/IV to a good belay (releasing an unexpected jet of water that had Ali moving his belay to avoid a soaking) and settled back to watch Ali at work. He followed the logical line and stopped to place a cheeky wire in a cave to the right (the in situ one he tried to clip had rusted right through) before launching out left onto the steepness. There was much shaking out, quite a bit of muttering and some hard driving to get the screws in followed by palpable relief and talk of pump (he never showed it- cool as a cucumber throughout) as he reached easier ground.
My turn. By heck this ice is hard. By nellie this ice is steep. By god I can see why he was shaking out every 5 seconds! I went from chilly on the lower belay to sweating hard!
Ali's grin said it all as I appeared on the easier ground and ran out another 40m of hero neve to the top.
I was humming the Adam and the Ants classic all day- top tune from my teen years for a top route and well led Mr. Rose.
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