Some pretty incredible conditions up in the Lake District over the weekend. Extensive snowfall and clear sunshine had left the hills covered in great powdery drifts. Totally out of condition for climbing mind, although it didn't stop Will & Harry from backing off of a route or two.
It's winter up north, which makes the 10 hour drive well worth it. Leaving Thursday after work, we drove through the night to dig our way through the snowdrifts into the Cairngorm ski car park at around 4am. Straight out and onto the hills, with a 6 hour walk-in meaning we didn't start climbing til around 11:30 in the morning. Ticked Deep Cut Chimney on Friday morning, skipped Saturday due to bad weather and then finished with a team ascent of Boomerang Gully on the Sunday.
Another intense winter day ended in adventurous fashion when I wandered off route on Pitch 3 of Milky Way in Coire an Lochain (Cairngorm) up something decidedly more challenging. Much fear, swearing and flailing later and I was on the top, but the gear retrieval on abseil and epic descent nav pushed the finish well into the darkness.
In very poor visibility, with spindrift flailing across the mountains, we completed a New Year's Day traverse of Ben Nevis up the tourist track and down the CMD. There was some very exciting nav across the final 1/3 of the climb, and the descent off of the ridge was fairly epic. Many thanks to Charlie Beard for all of these photos. Happy 2012!
