Just back from four days at the CIC with Andrew, Lee and Simon
The original plan was to get to the hut early on Sunday. but the roads were full of snow on the drive up so we got to the north face car park after lunch. The hut needed some digging and there was an awful lot of fresh snow, so no climbing! Ollie and Andrew came up later that evening and there were only six of us in the hut.
Monday dawned with us having to dig our way out of the hut. There was much fresh snow and wind slab and deep powder on most aspects, so we stayed low and fought our way up Moonlight Gully Buttress. All belays and runners were buried which gave a hard for the grade climb. We descended by abseil to avoid the slopes and were back at the hut for tea.
The winds veered to the east over night. More snow fell, overnight and there was evidence of large avalanches – a 2 metre-ish crown wall running from the west Douglas boulder to vanishing gully could be seen – and continuing on to the foot of Garbh gully and Italian climb.
The easterly wind had scouring the slopes of the Trident area so we carefully picked our way up to the foot of Nerid Gully along with Greg, James and a climber from the international meet. I think they did a FWA of Cranium and Heidbanger. We had a good chat, and then climbed up on some lovely ice and neve in two long, 60m pitches. Three more pitches on easy ground led to the plateau and descent via the northern flanks of No.4 gully. The gully bed was scoured in places, allowing a safe return to the hut. Snow was falling again by the time we got back to the hut. Ollie and Andrew had a fantastic day on the CMD arete.
Overnight there were strong winds and more snow fell most of the night and morning. We started to head up the corrie again but it felt very spooky. Most aspects were cross loading badly in the strong, swirling winds and we couldn’t access any of the cliffs safely. We saw a team dig through the larger crown wall at the foot of vanishing gully and a team fighting its way up Ledge Route. Other teams were out and about but most folk seemed to be coming off the hill early.
In the end, we opted for a safe day low on the mountain seeking out mountaineering ground, and headed back to the hut for a late lunch where we chatted with Blair from the SAIS and Pete from the ice factor who was with a visiting German journalist, Barbara.
