Dave MacLeod gets to grips with a challenging new route at one of Scotland's
favourite and best winter climbing venues Ben Udlaidh in Glen Orchy and gives
an overview of what's on offer.
"the
next bit of ice was merely a dribble of verglas, oozing out
of the cracked roof"
"Och, don't
start that nonsense Davey."
Pete never
did like it when I started using my hands instead of axes. Rock is definitely
not his favourite medium to climb on and both of us knew he might find
seconding a traverse on slopers a bit too challenging. After all, we were
meant to be ice climbing!
As I balanced
my way up a beautiful unclimbed corner system, I became aware that the
difficulty of the route itself wasn't going to be the only barrier to
bagging this prime new route today. It's happened before.
I subject
my unfortunate partner to an unsettling display of sketching, wobbling
and worrying before finally reaching the belay, only for them to announce
that there's no way they're coming up that and I must abseil off. In order
to reach the inviting and unclimbed fang of ice a pitch above me, I not
only had to make it up this technical and somewhat unnerving corner line
but I had to avoid looking gripped at the same time!
It wasn't really working. Peter interrupted again as I battled to stay
in contact with a sloping shelf which might be more at home on a gritstone
boulder problem. "Are you OK Davey? Am I going to be alright on this?"
"Its fine man, you'll be tall enough to reach the next bit of ice no problem."
I neglected to add that the next bit of ice was merely a dribble of verglas,
oozing out of the cracked roof looming above me.
"by
now, the idea of abseiling off on reaching the belay was beginning
to appeal to me too"
Scottish "mixed"
climbing can mean a lot of things but I'd never come across a feature like
this. Above me hung a perfectly translucent, rippled smear of half-inch
thick verglas. It looked great but how was I to climb it? I supposed that
I could carry on the bouldering theme to this ice climb by chipping some
edges in it and then crimping my way upward.
After a brief
attempt I decided that this type of climbing is best left for another
season. Besides, Peter would probably not be impressed! Chipping tiny
hooks in it with my axes seemed to be working (as long as I remembered
to pull straight down) and I persevered with this for six feet.
Before I knew it, I was totally committed and with a groundfall beckoning,
it was becoming hard to maintain my calm exterior in front of my belayer
below.
By now, the idea of abseiling off on reaching the belay was beginning
to appeal to me too!
>>
Ice is nice. The happy author about to do battle.
Pic: Ken Crocket
After some (very) long reaches and some quite long
moments, thicker ice was reached and a normal rate of progress was resumed.
I was enjoying myself again, so I made sure to rave about the quality
of the ice and positions to an unconvinced Peter for the rest of the pitch.
Peter, being
better at being lucky than at climbing rock, solved the crux in his own
way. On reaching the slopey traverse, he simply fell off, taking an uncomfortably
long pendulum. He swung past an adjacent icefall, planted an axe wildly
into this and happily front pointed up it to rejoin our new route at the
end of the pitch.
"Aye, that was a nice wee pitch Davey but God knows
what you did at that blank bit!"
