Heavy snow on the Ben – Vanishing Gully

Today was the stereo typical Scottish day out in the winter;

Wake up to rain in the car park.

Walk for two hours getting pretty wet on the outside and very sweaty on the inside.

Arrive at the CIC hut, sort gear and peer into the cloud trying to work out what to do.

Get a vast amount of spindrift forced down your neck and throat half way up the first pitch.

Squeeze water out of you’re gloves at the first belay and remove spindrift from neck.

Pitch the easy snow slopes at the foot of the climb due to the avalanche danger.

Walk back down to car dehydrated, eat, drink and plan the next day.

Excellent. (It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun)

Actually, not all of that is stereo typical but you get the idea.
Vanishing Gully was great, and Mr Bradford seniors first grade V, 5.

Finishing the hard climbing on pitch 2

The belay cave of choice

Abseiling down the route