With the maxim ‘Any winter climbing is a bonus before January’ in mind we planned a possible trip to Scotland. None of us had been to the Lochnagar area before so it was all new to us.
The weather as usual was not perfect & several of the people who were originally interested bailed leaving Dave, Brockers & I. I booked Braemar hostel last minute & we set off on a clear Sunday afternoon.
Monday morning, clear skies & very warm conditions, there were a couple of climbers in the hostel who had been there several days & they were very pessimistic about the conditions, they had resorted to going walking.
We drove to Spittal of Glenmuick & made the decision to not take climbing gear just crampons & one axe.
It was a clear day very warm but as we reached the col a very cold 35mph wind hit us, we quickly descended into the coire where it was sheltered & warm.
We decided to do the Black Spout a classic grade 1*** & we eventually did the LH variant which was slightly steeper, the gully had good snow & ice conditions.
On our way up we passed under Raeburns gully, where a couple of climbers dropped some gear, we picked it up. When we reached the summit they were just finishing so we had a natter, they said the gulley was just doable but very slushy.
Tuesday morning we awake to find similar conditions as the day before & made a decision to take the climbing gear up to try Raeburn’s, today when we reached the col it was like a summers day so we deemed it not worth going down into the coire & headed back getting back home at a reasonable time for a change.
Despite the warm conditions we had a couple of great days on the hill sussed out a new area that has a lot of worthwhile climbing & walking potential for the future, after all it is only December.
Raeburns Gully is definitely worth saving for good conditions, it's a classic. Ideally, good conditions when nobody else is around! We hit lucky last year, the freezing temperatures arrived a day earlier than forecast and we did the route the day before the queues arrived 🙂