This weekend was the second EUMC meet of the year and about 30 of us headed off to the Cairngorms, hopeful that MWIS had lied and actually the weather was going to be quite good.
Joanna Lisowiec, Ondrej Mandalu, James Lismore and I headed off into Coire an Lochain on saturday morning. Joanna and I climbed Fallout Corner (VI 7) while Ondrej and James climbed Hoarmaster (VI 6) and Fallout Corner.
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| Myself leading the main corner pitch of Fallout Corner (Photo credit: Joanna Lisowiec) |
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| Ondrej on Fallout Corner (Photo credit: Joanna Lisowiec) |
I lead the whole of Fallout Corner, and took my time on it, there was quite alot of snow to clear. In my opnion it was in reasonable mixed condition with enough white stuff to make it look nice and wintry and even abit of ice in crack to help me off the first belay, but not enough to make finding gear too hard. Abit like Cutlass ,which I did the week before, I could have a reasonable, non-strenous, rest every few moves thanks to a large foot ledge, where I could excevate foot placements. We climbed it in three pitches. The first went to just past the small roof, which felt quite large on lead. The second to the large ledge at the top of the main corner and the third to the top. I did intend on doing it in two pitches but the ropes got into a tangle on the belay, apparently, which meant I didn't have any slack. We abbed down Savage Slit, thanks to the guys topping out across the coire for pointing out were it was. Unfortunatley the ropes didn't pull, despite Ondrej, James and I all hanging on the end of it halfway across the coire. It was starting to get late, and I had people to take back to Kingussie, so Joanna and I decided to leave them and come back and try and retrieve them on Sunday.
Despite it being quite a windy day the route was quite sheltered. We heard an avalanche in the twin burns area on the west of the coire and in breaks in the cloud you could see that there was some debris on the lochan.
Most of the rest of the group headed to Coire an t'Schneada where The Runnel (II), The Seam (IV 5) and Hidden Chimney (III), amongst others, were climbed.
Sunday saw Joanna and I walk into the coire. We were the first at the bottom of Savage Slit so I decided to start prussicking up. I only managed to reach the bottom of the slit before a team from St. Andrews University came along and said they wanted to climb it and would rescue my ropes for me.
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| St. Andrews team on Savage Slit |
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| Coire an Lochain on sunday |
As they climbed Joanna and I dug a large bucket seat/snow hole, it turned into more of a snowfa, took some pictures and played around on some ice in the bottom of the coire. We could see loads of people climbing, there must have been atleast 12 seperate teams in the coire. Once the ropes had been freed we soloed up Y Gully Right Branch (II), which had a pretty sketchy topout thanks to some really poor unconsolidated snow, and walked out down the goat track. We talked to a few teams who had climbed Central Crack route (IV 5) and Y Gully Right Branch (IV 4), both complained about lots of fresh powder making the going quite tough.
The EUMC group managed to climb Invernookie (III 4), Alladins Mirror Direct (IV 4), Sticil Face (V 6), Fiacaill Ridge (II) and Marsh even got some ski touring in.
We had the give the house a quick clean before locking up and heading home.
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| How many students does it take to work a hoover? |
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