Stewart's Adventures: February 2012

Glen Coe's three lovely sisters

Sunday saw my first day of the winter season kick off, and it couldn't have come soon enough! After trying to get out before christmas with the weekends being eaten up by other commitments (one with my second day ever skiing in Glen Coe), poor conditions and lack of partners, I started wondering if I ever would get out. I also had bought my first set of axes (Petzl Aztars) on the Monday, so was super keen get out and give them a play. A plan to head up to Glen Coe with James and Owen was then hatched.

After leaving from mine in Glasgow, taking the two turning before blasting up the A82 all the way to Glen Coe, it was only a short while before Owen and myself met James at the Kinghouse Hotel. Poor conditions on the Buchaille from car inspection, quickly resulted in the plans changing from North Butress (IV 4) to Raeburn's Route (IV 4) in Stob Corie nan Lochan. Either way I was just psyched to be getting out!

Busy day in SCnL

1hr 45mins later we entered SCnL after, on my part, an unexpectedly long walk in only to find around 20 other people who all seemed to have had the same idea as us! Some guys were even there after flying up from London for the weekend - dedication.

Owen leading the variation start to Dorsal Arete

Copious amounts of pasta shovelling and gearing up in the low cloud lead to us heading up to the foot of Raeburn's, to no surprise find two parties at the foot of the climb who had been waiting a good while to get on it. A brief lift in the cloud spied that the classic Dorsal Arete (II) looked free so the objective changed again!

Owen lead the first pitch on a variation start, heading straight for a verglassed chimney but decided to take a spicy traverse on snow covered ledges to the first belay which probably went at grade III. Good climbing on his part. James then lead the next pitch to the second belay, and after having a peek over the block I was confronted with a scene of 9 people in front below the Dorsal.

Its amazing what you can do when you are stuck in the same spot for an hour, whilst freezing your eyebrows off!

About an hour of waiting drinking tea and pulling funky shapes in a silent rave to try and keep warm we were finally allowed to climb the fin. Owen, who had done the route before, took the lead after not leading it before and brought us across, but not before going off route to add in some mega rope drag. The exposure either side provided me the backdrop to take poor photos.