14/11/2010 Flashback to last winter's only route!

Great Gully Buttress (a day oot in the 'Coe)

Me n' Cb went for a route on Sunday (14th), I wasn't sure what would be 'in' so I thought an easy snowed up buttress route would be the best bet. mmmm almost right. I've had a notion to do the big buttresses on the Buachaille for a while now and I thought that Great Gully Buttress would be fairly straight forward - we'd gone to do it as a scramble the week before but it was cloudy and wet and soggy - so we just did the 2 munros by the normal route instead. Scramble grade is 1 or 2 so I thought winter II at the most.

Anyway, things went well. There are 3 rock bands each progressively harder. We roped up early at the first and easiest rock band to sort out heads/gear. We hadn't climbed anything since July and I felt a bit rusty. After that the rope went back into the bag until middle rock band which was a bit more serious looking. I led the first so, ever the gentleman, allowed Cb to take the lead (her first winter lead) No problems there. We led through for a couple of easy pitches. Close to the top I led a long traverse out to the right, up a gully where I got some solidish turf then traversed back to the left – I ran out almost all the rope, got a couple of bomber runners but probably only gained 25 meters !! Cb led through again and then by some bizarre coincidence it was the crux and my lead. The scrambles book says something like “climb the rack band by a diagonal crack running left to right then work back left to the top of the buttress”. The slab was covered in thin ice (melting) and unconsolidated snow, I had a bomber no. 8 hex in so I climbed a little above that and got a good crack to get my axe into. After that there was nothing to be found. I must have swept almost all the snow from the slab searching for a gear/axe/foot placement. I could see how it could be skipped up in the summer on dry rock.

I retreated back to my last runner and attempted to thrash my way up what remained of the gully Cb was belayed in but again I couldn't find any suitable cracks and we took the decision to back off, I must have been 5m from the top of the buttress.

How annoying.

It was about 15:30 by this point; sunset was 16:30, neither of us fancied down climbing the whole ridge. I took a look at Narrow Gully between Great Gully and Broad Buttresses and thought that we could ab into it. Looking down on it looked OK to downclimb. There was a massive pointy rock to use as an anchor. Cb went first and I followed. When I tried to pull the rope down it was stuck. Fortunately it wasn't vertical so I was able to quickly climb back up on the ropes and clear some snow. Ab'd again to halfway and threaded a rock with a sling and a crab, pulled the rope and rigged a new abb. however, when we actually got into the gully, it was Shit. The sensible option was to climb up to the top of the gully and continue from there on known ground. That worked out well. I packed up the rope and we started the slightly tedious climb up. We stopped for a breather and juice at the top of the gully where the buttress ended and I enjoyed standing on a bit of flat ground for 5 mins.

Daylight was fading but the rest of the route was just a hill walk so the rope stayed in the bag, and I stared breaking trail along the bottom of Great Gully Upper Face. That face shrinks in height so when it disappears, double back and that brings you in a zig zag to the top of Broad Buttress. Fantastic sunset view so I let Cb break trail for 5 mins so I could get a breather and call the wife to say we were still on the hill.

I caught up with Cb and took over the lead. There is a small bump in the ridge about 3 meters high - couldn't go round it so over the top was only option. I cleared large quantities of snow from the first half so find a delightful little ledge that I could step up to - cleared more snow to find a crack that took the axe and a foot hold. That was that dealt with. Rather than climb up to the ridge we contoured round to meet the normal route. - Cb was getting pretty tired. We made the top of the corrie path at sunset. Time for 3 chocolate biscuits, a handful of M n M's and tidy up harness and rack. (that's all I ate all day). The descent took about 2 hrs - mostly because the bottom of the path (where it runs above a big drop) was covered in a thin sheet of ice. It was probably the scariest bit of the day. Most of it was done a la derrière.

All in all it was good fun even if we didn't get a tick!! Handled the retreat without stress. We were on the hill for about 8 hours and didn’t see a soul for most of that. The norries would have been crawling with bodies.

Lessons learned:

1. Remember where you've put both of your big belay mitts.
2. Take the winter rope and not the summer one because it's furry - attracts snow and acts like a sponge and hasn’t been dry/Teflon treated. On the plus side it didn't freeze because it wasn't cold enough.
3. Take a bit longer to rig an abseil - had to leave a sling and crab coz I couldn't be arsed raking about in my sac for tat. Probably would have saved time in the long run if I’d used tat in the first place.
4. Conditions can vary the grade by (in my limited experience) grade and a half. I reckon it would have gone at II if it was in condition, the last 7 or 8 meters being the III maybe overall II/III would be more accurate. Last year we climbed The Slant which is Grade I. I felt it to be about grade II ½ at the time. Cb hated it and cursed me all the way to the top. I had great fun.