It was Henry’s final day in Scotland yesterday, and with a flight to catch in the afternoon we opted for a quick day in the Cairngorms before the drive up to Inverness. We had a couple of options in mind, both involving rocky summer routes (having exhausted the remaining snow in the gullies earlier in the week)
After a stunning sunrise during the walk in we could hear the wind on the plateau, so rather than walking over the tops we went for a climb up fingers ridge.
The crampons came off, axes went away and we had an enjoyable couple of hours climbing up the buttress, taking great care with the loose blocks that characterise the climb.
There were many other teams in the corie as per normal, with quite a few teams climbing gullies that had very little snow in them, which can’t exactly be recommended. There were even people following up behind, which has to be discouraged. Most of the winter gullies are fine under snow with a good freeze, but when bare are just loose rubble chutes, with anything knocked down by people above getting funnelled onto those below.
Best to stick to complete, well filled in gullies, or go rock climbing like we did.
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