I was teamed up with Bill and had the fantastic Sam as an instructor again. I learned so much from her this week as I was lucky to have her almost every day of the week while the instructor student ration dropped to 1:2 today.
Not a cloud in the sky as we made our way up to Stob Coire nan Lochan again. I had been here with the previous course to climb Broad Gully last Friday, so I knew how exhausting and steep the walk in to the actual route is.
The only pause before the actual climb was to put crampons on. Other than that 1.5 hours of relentlessly walking uphill.
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| Heading towards Stob Coire nan Lochan again |
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| Dorsal Arete close (The rocky lump on the right) |
Dorsal Arete is right next to Broad Gully so I found myself almost at the same place as last week. Cool. In the most welcome shade we climbed the several pitches up. It was more snowy than rocky with a few very narrow very exposed mini-ridges about a footstep wide. Wow. I'm not afraid of heights at all, but this was the top end of my comfort zone, haha.
Climbing like a pro with two axes we reached the plateau finishing on a short half snow half rock chimney. Very cool!
Didn't linger long at the top, but still enjoyed the fab views far and wide. We could even see Schiehallion in the distance. And The Ben completely cloudfree.
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| Pitch 2 ahead |
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| The Ballachulish Horseshoe (Yesterday's climb) |
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| Aonach Eagach in the middle, the Mamores and The Ben behind |
The walk back down was long and exhausting again, but the brilliant afternoon sun made up for it. After those two days it feels like the end of our week already although there is still one more day to go. But with the weather turning, rendering any kind of grade I or II climb very unlikely to be in condition, I might give tomorrow a miss and nurture my aching knees instead.
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