UKC

Hey can anyone give a comparable Scottish winter grade for the climbing on the forbes arete ... for research purposes.

In reply to /tmp:

The Boss is probably around III - up to about 50 degrees some seasons and the ridge itself around II/III mixed.

The descent is probably the trickiest bit.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:


Surely not, II at most. Similarly most of the ridge is little more than serious scrambling.


That is certainly correct.

In reply to Simon4:

II is probably fair, wouldn't disagree. It was a bit lumpy when I looked at it a couple of weeks ago (was up to do the Migot but the top snow field was warm and manky and not that enticing). End of season when it's "top heavy" it gets a bit more sporting.

The rest - bit trickier than the Aonach Eagach I suppose

In reply to /tmp:

I did it with a single axe is crap snow conditions which forced climbing all the towers your meant to bypass as the snow couldn't support weight (snow was good until the actual ridge). I would say the ice bit at the start about I/II, the ridge was more rock climbing in crampons rather than actual mixed about french 4/5 but very long and some of the moves very weird like a giant rock slide. The normal rock crux at the end is about french 3 just before the summit. Finding the descent is very difficult mainly due to the lack of good description in the guidebooks/online, we chose the wrong descent gully which resulted in lots of rappels but gained lots of crag swag from anchors other people seem to have been rescued from (who leaves 5 point equalised anchors?). Once down to the col there is a buried metal sheet with a sling round it at the top (2014) to ab over the burgscrund, however if you only have one rope it is uselessly high up. We jumped.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:
I've done that descent twice, once after the Forbes and once after the Migot. That gully gets pretty steep, also not that easy to locate in bad weather.

The first time we were faced with a monstrous schrund to cross, with an anchor a LONG way back. We combined with a French group to get a full length abseil across it, but was quite dicey.

Sorry, see Kipman's post above. The seriousness of that descent is well worth emphasising.

In reply to kipman725:

Yep - we had to rescue an Italian party fro the descent. got themselves into all sorts of difficulties and were caught in a storm.

Ended up guides coming over from the hut and meeting us halfway as we dragged them across.

In reply to Simon4:

Agreed, II at most. It's quite steep but perfectly straightforward. I remember we just moved together up it with single axes, and I was quite crap at ice-climbing. Also, agreed, the descent is serious. We came down it on a typical fine Alpine summer day, in the early afternoon and it was already dangerously soft. We just had to solo down, iirc. Couldn't possibly risk belaying.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

I have a cat called Nevis. She doesn't have a UKC account, though.

In reply to /tmp:

I'd say I/II for the Forbes Arete (coming up, I've only done it in descent), admittedly that was summer 2014 so much changed by now I imagine.

For the climbing on the ridge itself hard to say but you will abseil the only stuff that I found tricky. My partner and I didn't abseil at all in descending it so it can't have been that hard.

Also, when finding the normal descent route, be careful not to end up abbing down the charlet-bettembourg.

R

In reply to planetmarshall:

Only one Nevis the Cat - typing bollox since 2001.

In reply to /tmp:
When I did it, the Bosse was merely a slight steepening we walked up, and we romped along the ridge until just before the summit block where we were slowed by a nasty, v exposed pitch of 50 degree hard, black ice that required an ice screw belay, and two axes (it would have been doable, but tenuous with one).

I'm really usure how genuinely informative comparison with Scottish winter grades are – the factors covered by the grades can be very different. And how does one meaningfully factor in the seriousness of a descent (eg on the FA) in a comparison?