On Saturday I headed up north to Corrie an Sneachda for some
winter action with Chris, Brodie and Johny (all friends from my college class).
We packed all of our kit into Brodie’s car (filling it to max) and left Falkirk
at 21.30 hours. We had to make a quick
detour to Grangemouth as Brodie had left his boots in his house. The drive up
was in some seriously icy and fogging conditions, oddly I felt safe being
surrounded by four sleeping bags which I figured would cushion me in the event
of a crash. We arrived at the top car park of the Cairngorm Mountain Ski Centre
at around 12am. Chris and I pitched my lovely tent next to the car, Brodie and Johnny
slept in the car. Before diving into our sleeping bags Chris and I packed our
bags for the following day so we could have an early start in the morning. Once
this was done we dived into the tent and got our head down.
05/02/2012
Awoke 6:15am, quickly put the tent
down and headed of into the Sneachda.
Johnny and Brodie left just after us as they took a bit longer getting
up and ready. The plan was Johnny and Brodie were going to climb the Runnel and
Chris and I were going to climb Hidden Chimney Direct and finish up the Slant.
We had two way radios with us so we could stay in contact whilst on our routes.
Chris and I got to the bottom of the Mess of Pottage Buttress at about half
8and took our time getting kitted up as we were the first ones there. We built
the belay at the bottom of the route and I got racked up. By this time the
masses of people had arrived and there was a group of climbers belaying next to
us. (They were doing the Haston Line) I looked up at my route, this was the
hardest grade I had tried at tech 5 and it was safe to say I was nervous. It
was in lean nick and covered with a dusting of about 1cm deep snow so I could
not see any placement for my feet or tools.
I placed my tools and stepped
up placing a nut as I went. I then hooked higher up pulled up on my tools and
tried to get my feet to stick. I couldn’t find a placement for my feet so
grabbed onto my tools harder and then the scratching of my feet began. With
some screeching and lifting my feet into unusually high positions I got up to a
small ledge where I could rest. PHEW! Upon hearing the scratching of my feet
and my physical grunting a crowd below were now watching and me gave me some
cheers of encouragement. I had made a total of about six moves and I was
already pumped and scared. I battered another couple of nuts in and stood there
resting, I felt myself breathing heavily and saw large clouds of my breath. The
crowd was pushing me on.
“Time to move” I told myself and I found a
hook with my left hand tool, worked my feet up and stood up. I started clearing
the snow with my right hand searching for a placement. I found a crack and
placed my tool and torque,d hard and stood up again. Holding the torque I
fiddled in another nut and moved up again. With some more scratching of feet
and a few confidence calls of “watch me” to Chris I made it to another rest
ledge. I was now about 25meters high and started to worry. Thoughts of me
falling started creeping into my head. I
tried to fight them back but I couldn’t.
I WAS NOW CRAPPING IT AND
PUMPED!
I smacked in two nuts with my ice tool and
tried to move up, it was difficult. I stepped back down to my ledge. I had lost
my bottle! I stood there for a while trying to force myself on but it wasn’t to
be. I shouted to Chris “lower me down, I’m done” and with that my attempt was
over. I stripped the gear as I came down but had to leave two nuts and a gold
quickdraw behind. (If any reader finds them, it would be much appreciated if I
could have them back.)
Chris’s and the group that had
watched my attempt gave me the usual chat after failure, “that was a really
good effort” “Conditions made it tuff” etc. etc. I was just gutted and angry at
myself not for just failing but mostly for the complete lack of bottle and
technique. I sat feeling sorry for myself and resting my knackered arms.
GUTTED!
After the ropes where pulled
down we decided to just do the slant which was a grade 2. I needed to get up any route to try and get
the feeling of failure to disappear. We walked up the bottom of Jacob’s Ladder
and built our belay. I led off for the first pitch, after my previous
experience I flew up this route which felt almost like a walk in the park. I
built my belay at the bottom of Hidden Chimney. It was very busy there were
four other groups with belays set up next to me. I started bringing Chris up. Looking
down waiting to see Chris climb round the corner I noticed another climber
looking up towards me. He must have been in late 40s and was wearing all blue.
He pointed up towards me and in a stern voice shouted “you there take on blue!”
he had a voice of authority like a man from the military. I though there was no
way he was talking to me and just continued belaying, but again he pointed up.
This time shouting “BLUE ….. TAKE ON”. Chis then climbed round the corner and
up to my belay ledge and told me there was a bit slack on the blue rope and he
had asked the man to tell me to take in.
My ice tool
We sorted the rack and Chris
led the second pitch, he led it well and pulled over an awkward bulge in the middle.
He reached the belay and found there were very few placements to build a belay.
He managed to use another climber’s nut to reinforce his belay. He belayed me
up to him and once at his ledge I looked up at the final pitch. It was just a
plod up, an easy angled gully. I took off and told Chris that as soon as the
rope tightens, start climbing. Once I topped out I ran away from the crag until
Chris also topped out. We packed away our kit and radioed Johnny and Brodie to
see how they were getting on. They had just topped out to so we waited for them
at 1141 (spot height) We all walked back
to the car together discussing our routes.
Me on top off 1141
We headed into Aviemore for a
chippy tea and a kit shop traverse. It was still early so we watched the rugby,
Ireland vs Wales in Café Mamb
before heading back to the car park, pitched our tent, got in and quickly fell
asleep.
06/02/2012
On Monday morning I woke up to
the sound of a member of staff loudly banging cones on the floor and coughing
loudly (obviously a polite hint for us to move the tent.) We decided instead
off going to do another climb we would practise our winter skills and bag the
Cairngorm munro. Brodie and Johnny headed off and soloed Aladdin’s Coulor.
(grade 1 climb) Chris and I left the car park at 8.40am and
headed towards 1145 (spot height), on route we saw some pretty cool looking ‘rime’
attached to a fence line. We cut off and went to the lateral moraines. Upon
arriving we had a competition to see who could dig the best snow hole just
using their ice tool. I was cursing my
micro adze as it would only scoop out small amounts of bullet hard snow. After
about five minutes of digging the sun came out and it was absolutely beautiful weather.
We dug until we where happy with the emergency snow holes. We decided that we
had made two totally different styles and agreed to call it a draw!
Head bands rock!
We then went on to practise making
snow bollards. I made a small one, threaded the rope threw and got Chris to
test it. He South African abseiled off it and ‘surprise’ it held. Chris decided
to test it further and started bouncing on it, I prayed that it would break but
it didn’t. I also grabbed the ropes and
the both of us really started pulling but still it held. We then practised our abseil
techniques both South African and Classic style be3fore heading back up hill to
1141. On route Chris hurt his knee so we took it easy and plodded to the top. We
sat at 1141 for a while before heading to the top of Cairngorm. As we reached the top we heard a strange
mechanical noise coming from the weather station. Suddenly a part of the
station rose up and a whole range of
gizmo’s began spinning around. After a few minutes it sunk back down into the
station.
On route back down top we
stopped at the Ptarmigan restaurant for a look at the little museum. It was
surprisingly interesting and had a whole range of info including geology, how
the Cairngorm’s were formed and the history of mountaineering. We then walked
back to the car and waited for Johnny and Brodie to return before returning home.