
Day out practicing scrambling and approach/descents with clients.
Walked into the bottom of Sneachda, skirting around to below Fiacaill Buttress. Geared up, then a bit of short roping up the snow slope to some obvious boulders poking out. From here can go 60m to below the foot of the rocky ground and belay off spikes if not buried?
Up some scrambley ground, to below an obvious short corner on the right. Another pitch up this (corner itself wasn't frozen but cracks to the right were fine). Lowered clients down from the top down to previous belay, and then another long lower to the base of the rocks again. Up some trickier ground a bit more to the center of the rocks. Another short tricky corner, and then escaped to the col to the left.
Up Fiacaill Buttress, lot's of short pitches with the occasional bit of walking between. Very windy.
Dropped down the Goat Track. Direct lower off sling around low boulder to the left looking out - 60m puts you next to another boulder that could be slung on the left. 60m stomper lower from here, then another short stomper a bit further to get to the traverse.
Traversed left with couple of bits of gear to the start of Red Gully. Switched to pitched climbing here. 60m long pitch to a belay on the left, good ice - felt about tech 3. Then one more easier pitch to the top (about 40m?), block belay just below the plateau. Tonnes of spindrift coming down.
Back down the Goat Track once more, stacked abseil off the lower block (quite like this, can go down first to sling the block after 60m so clients arrive and clip on) then could lower off the block, but chose to practice stomper with 2 ropes tied together. Alternatively could do one more stacked abseil. Prepare a ledge for clients then do a massive 120m stomper would get to the floor I reckon.
Area :
Cairngorm: Northern Corries, Hell's Lum, Creagan Coire Cha-no, Lurcher's Crag and Outliers
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.