That was the call on friday night from an old uni friend Dave MacLeod. I'm glad I didn't have to find out what an early start would have been. Dave is a well known figure in the climbing world, continually pushing the boundary of what is technically possible and is considered by many to be the best all round climber in the UK, having just completed the UK's hardest traditional climbing route graded E11 and F8c+ as well as putting up the UK's hardest winter moutaineering route, hardest boulder problem, hardest sport route, the list goes on... Have a look here for more information on what he is up to.
I'm glad to say that I wasn't going to be climbing anything that day, Dave and Malc were keen for some winter climbing and I was going to join them for the walk in and take some pics. Dave had the keys for the access roads, so we were able to cut out some of the walk in and take the cars up.
The temp had risen considerably through the night and the avalanche risk was a solid category 4. After taking stock at the hut, the plan was to stay far away from the gullies and follow Tower ridge up to a mixed route beside Echo wall and see what it looked like. This should keep us away from the path of any avalanche should the cornices collapse and on more stable snow/rock areas.
The wind and rain that had started when we were at the hut continued to deteriorate and I only had short windows to take pics of the walk in before the lens got a soaking. Dave and Malc had managed to colour co-ordinate without any prompting from me and the look that I was going for was of the two climbers looking dwarfed by the expanse of white surrounding them.
picking the least avalanche prone route....
As we rounded into the gully the going got a lot harder, wading through waist deep heavy wet snow. A quick block test to look at the snow pack showed a very obvious shear plane about a foot down into the wet snow, not an ideal place to be. Dave and Malc geared up and we headed to the relative safety of the rock. The rain had changed to driving snow at this point and was creating and excellent build up of rime ice to add texture and detail to the rock, however the temp was still rising and the ice that Dave and Malc had planned to climb was continuing to rot and melt.
I followed up as far as I felt I could go without increasing the danger levels past a point I was comfortable with and got a couple of shots as they started up into the climbing proper.
Knowing that I wasn't going to get any more I turned and headed down as quickly as possible. The rain was torrential by this time so I kept the camera in the relative dry of my bag and stomped back to the car wondering how Dave and Malc were getting on.
I got out of the wet gear and tried to start the drying off of the camera kit while I had a bite to eat. It wasn't long before I had a knock on the window and saw a very wet, but happy Dave and Malc looking for a lift back down the hill. The route had turned out to be in very poor condition and the snow had quickly turned to rain so they had made the call to head back about 10 mins after I did.
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