20 degrees in the valleys, hottest weekend of the year so far – plan for the weekend after Easter? Go ice climbing on the Ben of course! Me and Matt left York at about 1pm on the Friday, with a stop at Tescos for food and Fort William for fish and chips. Got to the north face car park for 8.30, by which time Simon and Carmen were already sitting back with a cup of tea in the hut. It was still light enough to walk through the woods without torches, getting overtaken on the way by several other climbers with disconcertingly smaller packs than us. The rest of the walk up the Allt A Mhuilinn was somewhat soul destroying as the lights of the CIC hut floated in front of me, never getting any closer. Walking up hill with a heavy sack immediately after eating fish, chips and mushy peas is also not to be recommended.
Despite the summer-like temperatures, the signs of a good winter were evident around the hut – some huge snow drifts from around 600m and the north face glistening white in the star light. Reports in the hut mainly involved people backing off routes because of dodgy conditions – not too encouraging. A relatively early start the next morning saw Simon and Carmen heading for Observatory Gully to climb the classic combination of Tower Scoop (III *) and Good Friday Climb (III ***). They found good ice conditions with old snow banking out much of the route. After topping out near the trig point in the sun, they descended Coire Leis to spend a leisurely afternoon sitting in the sun.
Meanwhile, with no real plan in mind, me and Matt headed straight for the nearest snow in Coire na Ciste, a hundred yards from the hut. This led up a nice little mini-canyon with a stream running underneath where our way was blocked by a crevasse (yes, really). We decided to escape via a rock scramble which turned out to be rather worrying on loose, wet rock. Unperturbed, we wandered past an impressive icefall which had fractured and buried itself in the snow towards the base of Garadh Gully (II *). This route can give anything from grade I to grade IV difficulty, depending on conditions. We found it in easy grade I condition, banked out with old snow apart from one detour onto rock to avoid another crevasse. This turned out to be a brilliant approach to the routes in the upper left corner of Coire na Ciste, which spread out before us in the sun.
Comb gully was discounted as too scary in the conditions, Raeburns looked too easy and Matt had done Glover's Chimney. We therefore chose Number 2 Gully Buttress (III ***) which still looked plastered with an obvious ice pitch low down. This turned out to be an excellent choice. Never technically difficult, but all of the belays were buried which kept our concentration up! The first pitch gave the best ice, while the supposed crux ice pitch was actually on steep, soggy snow ice which would not take any screws. The finish on deep powder with the sun sparkling off it was unnerving but at least there was no cornice.
Not satisfied yet, we headed (rapidly) down number 4 gully and saw the sun just starting to catch Douglas Gap West Gully (I **). We marched over there in scorching sun with little avalanches going off to add to the Alpine atmosphere. A quick sunbathe in the Douglas Gap and down Douglas Gap East Gully (I) got us back down to the hut for about 6. Pleased with our haul of 5 routes for the day, we all devoured Carmen's curry and hit the bunks.
After more reports of dodgy conditions, no sign of a frost and with aching limbs, we were sorely tempted to walk back down and go skiing for the day at Nevis Range. Thankfully, we chanced it and headed back up into Coire na Ciste behind Simon and Carmen. They headed off for an adventure on Italian Climb – Right-hand (IV **), one of the few lower routes with obvious ice still remaining. They found it in excellent nick with thick chewy ice, but got a bit lost trying to descend and ended up abbing back down the route – a 3 hour endeavour!
Meanwhile, we'd plodded up to the base of Number 3 Gully Buttress (III ***), once again having the whole of Coire na Ciste almost to ourselves. From beneath, the diagonal snow ramps at the start of the route look really easy so I set off soloing without getting the rope out. This proved a mistake as the snow was bullet hard neve and the exposure very quickly kicks in with the long snow slopes below. After a bit of faff, we got the ropes out and a couple more easy pitches got us to the foot of the hard step (the belays along the snow shelf are excellent and very comfortable). The step to exit the snow slopes looks really hard from below but there is a devious traverse at the top which, although extremely exposed, reduces it to just a couple of moves on rock. Matt led this and was somewhat relieved to find easy snow and a belay round the corner.
I led off up an icy groove on what we thought would be an easy plod to the top. Instead, after 20m I was confronted with an outrageously exposed rock move to get between two snow terraces. It was only about a 3m traverse of probably vdiff, but with a 200m+ vertical drop beneath your feet it was exciting to say the least. All that remained was steep and crazily exposed snow to the summit. Quick check on the radio: 20m of rope left, my guess just over 20m of the route to go. I started along the snow to find the sun had turned it to mush. Axes ripping and feet slipping I ran out 10m, letting out a wail of fear every so often. Thankfully I found a bomber hex and nut to protect the last 10m. More rubbish snow and the final rock wall was in reach – rope goes tight. Argh! Don't want to hang around here! Matt takes down the belay and starts moving together, a belly flop and I'm on the top in the sun with a monster boulder to belay off. What a route! 60m ropes advisable though.
With our adrenalin reserves well and truly used up, we headed back down number 4 to the hut, packed up and walked back down to the car. Only a 6 hour drive back to york to go and in bed for 1.30am. Another brilliant weekend in the CIC hut which now sports luxurious indoor toilets and a functioning drying room. Just got to work out how to pack a bit lighter next time.
A superb weekend and a fitting end to the winter – Italian Right Hand was one of the best pitches of the season.
We couldn't face another 5.30am start on the Monday, so had a leisurely day walking up Ben Lomond instead, where it was definitely summer!
Our photos are here http://climbing.me.uk/CIC2010/index.html