Beinn Udlaidh and Blue skies

Another perfect day in Scotland - I can't believe how amazing it has been up here this winter! Goregous sunshine but a chilly morning. Daisy was saying -10.

On Friday, Andy and I headed for Beinn Udlaidh for some continental style icefall climbing - along with the rest of the world it seems. Definitely not the place to be heading this weekend. This, of course, meant that the was no chance of getting anywhere near my target route of Quartzvein Scoop. We headed way over to the right to a route called Junior Jaunt (IV,5) which doesn't get any stars in the normal guidebook but came recommended by Dave Evans on the walk-in. Not a single other team on the route the whole time we were at the crag. The route starts out of Central Gully with a steep slab first pitch and a steeper icicle second pitch. I got pitch 1 (see below) which was about IV,4 and I actually enjoyed it too. Andy took the top pitch which was more brittle and very hollow sounding in places.

We reached the top in good time and could see lots of other teams also topping out, this meant Andy set off at about Warp 7 to get to another route before anyone else. Quarzvein still had about 3 teams on it, so we headed for South Gully of the Black Wall (IV, 4). At this point Andy took to belay bunny duty and handed over the rack of screws. Pitch 1 is a fairly mild pitch although it would have been nice to have a few wires for the bottom 20m until I got near some ice that would take a screw. But all was uneventful. The second pitch is steeper and harder and can be done in 2 ways at the moment either by nipping off to the right into a scoop and easier ground or straight up following the steeper ice. I decided that I was going to give the steeper stuff a go and with quite a lot of puffing and being rubbish at putting screws in with my left hand I made it over the ice fall and onto a snow slope. Phew! Then there was just the cornice to deal with, the last piece of gear a distant memory I was faced with the top of the cornice being at about the bottom of my ribs - hmmm! So demonstrating some great elegance I stuck one foot near my shoulder out to the side for a least a little help and then dragged myself up, with some fine quality knee action. Much to the entertainment of some other climbers who wished they'd had a camera!

We then had to scoot back to Ballachulish so I could meet my clients for the next 3 days, so thanks for the belaying Andy and for going bumbling with me!