Trip Report: Winter Climbing in the Cairngorms
- Sean Clancy
- Jan 16
- 4 min read
Introduction
My climbing pal Jess and I had this weekend in the diary for a couple of months. It's always an absolute lottery trying to plan Scottish winter trips in advance, but since we both work in the public sector, needs must! Fortunately, after an unseasonably warm spell over New Year which had left a lot of the mountains dry and bare, things were looking promising with a super cold weather system hanging around in the days leading up to the trip, forecast to stay until late on the Sunday.
Thursday: Making our way North
The plan was straightforward. I planned to pick Jess up after work and jump straight on the motorway, getting to Aviemore in time for a decent night's sleep. On the way to work in the morning however, conditions didn't exactly favour a long journey. After some even slower traffic than usual on the M60, an actual blizzard came out fo seemingly nowhere, leaving cars stranded on the slip roads all around me as people struggled to maintain purchase in the slow moving traffic.
I eventually made it to work, and crossed my fingers things would fair up by the afternoon. Thankfully, things were a lot less dramatic once we got on our way and we made good progress all the way to Karn House.
Friday: Fear the Powder
The Northern Corries of the Cairngorms are almost certainly the busiest winter crags in Scotland. There's good reason for this, they host some cracking routes of various types, and all within a short (by Scottish standards) walk from the ski centre car park. The downside of this is they can be very, very busy. Not exactly the place for some peaceful, soul searching belay contemplation.
Since we had come up on Thursday evening, we figured Friday was the best day to head into Coire an t-Sneachda with a faint hope of not getting stuck in a queue. We made a moderately early start and set of for the Mess of Pottage as the sun was beginning to break the horizon.
We had scoped a couple of route options in the guidebook but our primary target for the first day out of the season was The Haston Line (III 4). Whilst there was already a bit of a crowd forming at the base of the crag, we made our way up nonetheless to see which routes the various groups were gearing up for. There were a few aiming for Hidden Chimney and The Slant above, and a trio of guys heading up Hidden Chimney Direct.
This meant there ere only 2 teams ahead of us on The Haston Line, the first of which had already started, so we decided to stick to the original plan and wait our turn.
Unfortunately, what I hadn't really given much thought to was the fact that all these routes intersect higher up the buttress. And we ended up waiting for nearly 3 hours before we could move off from the start. Fortunately it was such a beautiful day, I didn't mind waiting too much.
The climbing itself was really enjoyable. A couple of steep corners to pull over, all well protected and with good features for axe placements, even without any consolidated snow. The mild weather, followed by extremely cold sustained weather had left the rock bare but covered in lots of dry powder snow. This meant you had to do a bit of digging to find the rock and that occasionally, what you had been standing on for the last half an hour would just decide to collapse from beneath your feet. A little anxiety inducing at times!
Saturday: A New Venue
On Friday night, friends and fellow KMC members Andy and Gareth arrived at Karn House full of enthusiasm and ideas. They were planning on heading in to Creagan Cha-no, a more recently developed crag on the other side of Cairn Gorm, which since it doesn't yet appear in the most popular guidebooks, was likely to be less busy that The Norries.
The wind was a little higher than on Friday but the temperature was still arctic. The car thermo had read -16°C when we jumped in at the hut! This meant the walk in was harder work than under more consolidated conditions, but we still arrived at the top of the crag in around an hour 40, so no complaints here.
Again, we selected another III 4 called Boundary Ridge. Mostly because it was the longest route on the topo! This had a nice, steep and technical start with some excellent jugs and far more turf than you find these days in the more popular venues. After the first section of 30 meters or so, I handed over to Jess to lead on to the top.
It may not have been an all star classic of a route but one well worth doing and that I'd recommend. Not least because there was never a chance of a queue on this one! The views on the walk out weren't bad either...
Conclusion
With 2 good days in the bag, Jess having recently had quite a scary back injury and the thought of work on Monday, we both decided to bank our success and head back home in good time on Sunday.
I was happy having got the season off to a decent start, confident that if the conditions allow then there's plenty of scope for improvement this winter. With any luck I'll get chance to come back north of the border in February and perhaps I'll have my eyes on something a little more adventurous...
Until next time.
S
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