Winter Warmer

having hit honours this past year in my maths degree as part of my degree I'm required to go and visit a big posh house called "The Burn" where we sit and talk about maths all weekend and prepare a talk on mathematics to present to our professors. This action packed weekend is only undertaken by penultimate year students, due to my entry to honours being a year early I wasn't required to go to "The Burn" along with my course-mates. Instead I was effectively handed a 4 day weekend without classes or tutorials! Any self respecting climber in this situation knows exactly what to fill empty days in winter with. The forecast looked promising and Joe was free, so with Erik in tow the three of us began the four hour drive from St Andrews to Torridon to attempt the ultra classic Poacher's Fall

We arrived in the Liathach car park in the dark and quickly hunkered down in preparation for our 4:30am wake up. We grumpily arose and I stuffed  some fruitloaf in my mouth before beginning the plod round the back of Liathach. For some reason I had it in my head that the walk into Liathach was going to be really hard work. On the contrary it was one of the easiest winter walk ins I've ever had, there is almost no uphill and on the day a trail through the snow had already been broken making my life noticeably easier. Soon we were in the relevant corrie and able to see the fat line of Poacher's fall looming in the distance.

Poachers is the central streak of ice.

We quickly trudged up the steeper snow to find a large flat area had been dug into the snow beneath the route the day previously where we opted to gear up. I'd said the day before that I was happy to lead any pitch on the route as I was just keen to lead some ice this season because after the rather poor start I'd just kind of come to expect that ice wasn't going to materialise. As a result I was given the first of three pitches. 

The first moves

I swam up some deep snow to the base of the ice. I swung my axe for the first time and to great joy discovered that the ice was just perfect. All it took was one swing and the placement was bombproof. I swung with my other axe into even more glory ice. Soon, without really realising due to just being distracted by how good the ice was I was way above the deck without any gear. Joe reminded me to place some screws and so I did before carrying on up. My goal was a cave about 60 metres up where there was some in situ abalaklov thread belays.

Just beneath the cave

At about the 30 metre mark the pitch began to steepen and I had so be more methodical about my movements and my gear placements, though the ice was still incredible and I rarely required more than one swing to get a bomber pick placement. Having aimed for the cave I'd actually accidentally climbed passed the in situ belay point, having realised this I had to down climb a short section to get across to the threads. I quickly set up the belay and shortly both Erik and Joe where at the belay with me. Because we were climbing as a three and we each wanted a pitch, a small amount of faff with the ropes ensued before Joe could head on up and tackle the next pitch: the crux of the climb.

Joe leading, just before he disappeared from sight

as is to be expected from Joe on the crux of the route there was a fair number of watch me's heard coming from above. Though the constant updates were appreciated as pretty soon into his pitch he disappeared from our sights and the only feedback we had from the leader was the occasional jaunt on the rope and the stream of "watch me" coming from above.

The crux of the route was a short corner of very steep ice, due to your ice axes pushing you back from the ice it felt like the ice was overhanging, though it was over quickly and some some sustained grade IV ice from there lead to the belay at the top of the pitch.

The final pitch of the route follows a long winding runnel of grade IV ice to the bottom of the snowy slopes on the main Liathach ridge. Erik climbed very quickly, placing screws with speed and was shortly at the snow slopes where another abalaklov thread belay loomed.

Erik heading up into the icy chimney

too good to be true!

Once we'd reached Erik we launched up the snow slopes so that we could reach the top of Liathach and eat our lunch on the top. The higher up the mountain we got the further around we could see until we reached the summit from where we could see for miles in all directions. Truly one of the best winter climbing views I've ever had.

On the approach to the summit

I sat on the summit cairn, eating pizza enjoying the beauty of Scotland around me. The climb had been unbelievably good, there was no single good pitch. All of the pitches were as good as each other and each pitch was of the highest calibre of climbing that we have in Scottish winter. The views from the summit really capped things off. We sat peacefully on the windless summit until we felt we could linger no more and began our descent.

Now the descent turned into a bit of an adventure, we walked along the ridge to the east, though we soon realised that the snow on the bulk of the mountain was quite dodgy. After some short discussion we decided to abseil down a large easy angled gully on the south side of the mountain. Thankfully this passed without too much drama though walking on snow you don't really trust is always a bit nerve racking. I was definitely glad for the rope. A couple of steeper sections split the gully and the ice on these was very poor and de-laminated whilst I was being lowered down by Erik and Joe. This was worrying to say the least and once again I was very grateful for the rope.

Soon we'd made it down to the bottom of the gully and beneath the snow line. Looking back at the south face of the mountain our caution had been warranted as much avalanche debris littered it's slopes. A short walk along the road took us back to the car park, we sat in the car for a short while eating food before we drove back south east to the Cairngorms in preparation for another days climbing.

The next day we knew that the northern corries would fill very quickly due to it being a weekend and that the weather forecast was spectacular, we opted for the early start to try and beat the crowds in. Thankfully this strategy payed off, and when we got to the bottom of fingers ridge (more like "fun"gers ridge). There was only one other party on it ahead of us.

The majority of the corrie was very heavily rimed and most of the routes looked like they'd be an unpleasant swim given the conditions. However due to the popularity of fingers ridge a groove up through the rime had been dug out and the climbing wasn't affected by the rime because of it, which made the climb a much more enjoyable experience. We climbed in 2 pairs, I was with Erik and Joe climbed with Paul. Myself and Erik set off first as Erik had the camera and would be able to take pictures of Joe leading from above. Erik got the first pitch of the climb which mainly involved climbing up on good snow and not much to sustain interest. Though soon he'd climbed the 60 metres of the first pitch and was belaying up above.

I quickly made it to where he was, and after a small break to cool down (it was unbelievably warm in the sun) I set off on the next pitch. The climbing on the second pitch was continuously fun and very interesting, with fantastic gear whenever you felt like you needed it. At first I was gutted not to have been able to lead the iconic fingers pitch, but after pitch 2 I felt like I hadn't missed out on anything, as it was just as good if not better than the climbing on pitch three.

Joe beneath us, leading pitch 2

Myself on the lead of pitch 2

Erik lead through on pitch three which we'd wrangled to be the final pitch of the climb. Erik threaded between the needles and was soon out sight. Behind the fingers was a short sharp wall, which was thin on the feet and required the ability to torque your axes well into thin cracks. Thankfully though the feet weren't mega the torques were about as good as they come. I felt like I should've been on a harder route than I was because of how thin and techy it all felt, right up my street! Erik made it past this wall by beached whaling onto the top which always adds some comedy value to a route. 

The classic shot

On my own way up I'd decided I wanted to stand on top of one of the fingers, which proved to be of the most trouser filling experiences I've ever put myself through. I discovered the wider of the two fingers was much harder to stand on top of, and so I had to stand on the narrower one, which was about the size of a place mat. I stood there and pretended like I wasn't scared and hoped that the pictures would be worth it. I was very jittery afterwards, much to my own amusement.

I needed new undies after this one.

The day ended by relaxing on the cairngorm plateau with good friends in glorious sunshine, what better way to spend an afternoon?

Great times.

Lots of people enjoying the weather