A superb cold blast and my earliest ever Cuillin winter routes with Guy Steven this weekend.
Climbing.
We climbed Dave Ritchie's excellent CD Buttress V,6 up on Thearlaich on Saturday, stashed the rack then came back to climb a great new route on Sunday. Deliverance was the name chosen as the Cuillin had "delivered" on Guy's first winter sortie. You can read my version-
http://skyeguides.co.uk/deliverance-vii7-4th-november/ and Guy's modest version-
http://guysteven.blogspot.co.uk/
Conditions
Ludicrous quantites of snow fell overnight Saturday leaving avalanche debris in the great Stone Shoot to deal with on Sunday. The shear line was where we had belayed at the foot of CD Buttress, about 100m below the top of the shoot.
Cameron also reported a wide avalanche at the north end of the Cuillin-
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=526243
Avalanches on this scale are a first for me in 18 Cuillin winters. The cold winters in 2009 and 2010 gave a wee bit of windslab but big wet-slab is very unusual.
Outlook
So far we have 2 of the 3 crucial stages suggested by Tom Patey for perfect Traverse conditions; a massive dump and a thaw right to the crest- the Ridge would have been great if solid this last w/e. As ever in this situation it's a very fine line on whether the crest of the Ridge will strip before the next cold arrives at the weekend. Optimists will keep a close eye & be prepared for a possible rush on Friday. I'll watch temps & try to get glimpses when the cloud clears and post updates.
