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Day 3 of the Winter Meet. Sunday 20th January

24/01/13

 

Sunday dawned beautiful once more but many had to head south and many heads needed soothing after the Saturday evening celebrations.

 

Considerably fewer pics as the carefully organised photo collecting of the first 2 days faltered somewhat. Hopefully shots will emerge of-

Spike, Nathan & Kim headed into Coir’ a’ Ghreadaidh to practice some skills; Spike practising for his MIC assessment and the others getting yet another instructors opinions!

Paul & Brendan headed to Window Buttress and climbed Curtain Call-

“New route on the West Face of Window Buttress.


Curtain Call III * 380m FA Brendan Croft and Paul Cunningham 20/01/2013
Start at the foot of the descent gully on the left hand side of the West Face as approached from the Glen Brittle Hut. Follow easy ground for 100m sticking to the right hand
side of the gully to an open area with a choice of exits. Climb the steep groove on the left (crux) for 35m before escaping right. Follow easy-angled grooves for 200m before joining the final pitches of Deep Cut Gully.“
Iain & Andy made me jealous by climbing on the huge cliff of An Dalliad. We thought their ascent of Branching Gully was a first winter ascent but transpires Neil Urquhart and James Sutton’s dad Kevin climbed it (at grade II) when it was banked out in the winter of 1991.
Iain & Andy enjoyed thinner conditions with multiple steps of 4 in their 500m route. A great choice.
Icky and I opted for Banachdaich Gully working on the theory of it having flowing water and being in the “magic zone” between 1500 and 2500 ft.

Sadly we also discovered where a lot of the snow had ended up too. The attractive icefall was glazed snow and the snow banks got steeper as we gained height.

The final swim up vertical powder led to a wonderful but insurmountable cave. The correct line would appear to take the left hand corner instead but, with darkness very much approaching we opted for a couple of abseils back to safety.Enjoy the gallery-