This Area includes some of the most accessible (and some of the hardest) winter climbs in Scotland. Coire an t-Sneachda has an excellent variety of winter climbs, many in the lower to middle grades, while Coire an Lochain hosts classics of a range of grades and some extremely demanding test-pieces. This Area also includes the very accessible Creagan Coire Cha-no, Lurcher's Crag in the northern Lairig Ghru, and the training bluffs of the Chalamain Gap. Also included here are the cliffs of the northern side of the Loch A'an basin such as Hell's Lum, Stag Rocks and Stac an Fharaidh (as they are on the same general massif as Cairngorm), while cliffs on the southern side of Loch A'an are in the Ben Macdui, Carn Etchachan and Shelter Stone Crag Area of DLOG. The range's former name is Am Monadh Ruadh (the red hills), distinguishing them from Am Monadh Liath (the grey hills) to the west of the River Spey.
Climbed this as a three, the weather was overcast with a worsening forecast going in, so we set off early in order to beat the weather. to climb this route would be the wrong terms, swim, would actually be more in order. waist/chest deep snow, the first pitch was awkward trying to find ice under the snow. However, upon reaching the chockstone, the snow was such poor quality that we couldnt reach it. after a good forty minutes of trying some pretty unethical techniques to get over it, during which time the weather turned pretty bad, visibility low, high winds, masses of spindrift, we made the decision to abseil off the route. due to climbing on a single 60m, this took some 4/5 abseils, and lots of time. frozen hair, eyebrows, and anything else exposed we walked back to the car in all items of kit, too tired to remove anything! nice to know that our housemates thought we were in the pub with our very late return rather that having a mini epic on the hill!!!
