Gary emailed me some time ago to ask advice about buying a pair of ice axes. This got me thinking, and I suggested we hired a guide for a few days of winter mountaineering in Scotland, so that Gary could get a taste of what it was all about and I could get some revision (having only managed one day of climbing – other than a silly ice route – in the last three years). An acquaintance of Gary’s called this “going continental”, which I quite liked.

We met at the Glen Nevis SYHA hostel on Sunday, and on Monday morning met Scott, our guide for the next three days. Thankfully first impressions were that he was entirely normal, and we weren’t letting ourselves in for anything too deadly. I’d given him a list of routes which were on my tick list, and he got straight down to business with the suggestion for the first route of the trip…

Aonach Eagach (II/III ****)
“An exhilarating expedition in majestic surroundings. Speed is of the essence if a party is to avoid benightment.”
The ascent of Am Bodach was snowy right from the car, and we soon donned crampons. My were shiny and new, so I quickly sought to impress our professional mountain guide by ripping three holes in my trousers in rapid succession. From the summit of Am Bodach, the ridge stretches out in front of you, both magnificent and intimidating.

The first thing to get to grips with is awkward down-climbing on sloping ledges; suffice to say I was not in my comfort zone! From there it’s continual ‘interest’ (in the guidebook sense of the word), by turns exhilarating and terrifying.

There are a few steps across very narrow sections, which have never been my forte, but I didn’t gibber too much, and confidence soon increased. Gary provided a moment of excitement when a snowy slope he stood on turned out to be a snow-covered slab, but otherwise all was well.

With some more fun ‘ups’ and engaging/dubious ‘downs’, we eventually reached the low point of the ridge approaching Stob Coire Leith and took the rope off. The sun had been shining all day, with not a breath of wind, and as the sun sank lower in the sky we were treated to a wonderful ridge walk with amazing colours and views in all directions.

So, a stunning start to the week, but the forecast was a bit rough for day two. Which was…

Ledge Route (II, ****)
“Probably the best route of its grade on the mountain, with sustained interest and magnificent situations.”
I chickened out of Ledge Route four years ago, but didn’t tell Gary or Scott this as we slogged through thigh-deep snow from the North Face car park towards the CIC hut. With a brisk wind blowing all over the place, we shivered into our gear and wandered to the foot of the route. It looked much better this time, and I was immediately more confident on proper snow than the snow-covered rock of the previous day.

Once again Scott moved us along with terrifying efficiency; the man’s a machine. The ridge was absolutely incredible all the way up, and the photos don’t do justice to the views both up onto the rest of the north face, and down the Allt a’ Mhuilinn to lower ground.

The narrow step I’d seen on innumerable photos wasn’t as bad as expected (covered in snow) and then Gary got some tips for winter anchors while I danced around at a belay to keep warm. The final third of the ridge continued to deliver exactly what I wanted from “Scottish Winter”, although the wind was really whipping across by this point. An excellent finish saw us topping out on Carn Dearg into some pretty fierce gusts, although still with plenty of sunshine and wonderful views.

Those gusts blowing into Coire na Ciste were sending vertical plumes of snow upwards into great spouts as they blasted their way out of the coire.

A descent alongside the Red Burn saw me trip while on some hard ice and have to deploy my first real-life axe arrest. Gary chided me for not making it truly textbook, but my main criteria in this instance was ‘effectiveness’, which it fortunately had in bucketloads.

We decided to leave Scott to take the path from the Red Burn back to the North Face car park while we descended the Tourist Path to the hostel. The presence of three feet of wind-blown powder on the path proved once again that Scott is always right, and we probably should have gone the other way. Oh well!

Golden Oldy (II, ***)
“The established classic of the crag.”
The following day proved that Scott is not always right, as he didn’t agree that Snowdonia is better than Scotland (although I’ll admit I was having my doubts by this point). Nevertheless we had a big day planned, so I put our differences aside and did my share of breaking trail in to the west face of Aonach Mor after catching the climbers’ early gondola.

It truly was a slog, but eventually we got to the foot of Golden Oldy, a 500m route which would require speed and efficiency if we were to make the final return gondola at 16:45. Long-term readers of this blog will be aware that the words ‘speed’ and ‘efficiency’ are not usually applied to the climbing style employed by myself and Gary.

After dealing with some fairly steep turf and ice patches on what Scott referred to as merely the ‘preamble’ to the route, we got stuck into the best climbing of the trip.

Turf, ice, rock, reaching, thrutching, teetering, and the odd prayer saw us making steady progress up the jumbled broken rocks of the ridge. How this route gets fewer stars than Ledge Route is beyond me. I felt happier on this terrain than anything else on the previous two routes, and loved the whole thing.

I even pushed my ‘standing up to walk across the narrow bits’ boundaries further than ever before, which I was really pleased with.

OK, so there was one bit where I resorted to going à cheval while Gary stood, but it was just one of many narrow bits which I otherwise manned-up for.

The weather yet again remained benign for the whole route, and we topped out into more views, some celebratory Quorn picnic eggs (just me, that one), and a navigationally-simple descent to catch the gondola in plenty of time.

So massive thanks to Gary for going along with this plan, to Scott for keeping us safe and being excellent company throughout, and to Scotland for providing excellent weather and loads of snow.