Fantastic day on Lochnagar today. Turf frozen and a cosmetic dusting of snow on some of the buttresses, plus a bit of riming happening later in the day.
We headed up Raeburn's Gully which provided superb sport. Lots of good ice, though thin - and at times absent - on the steeper sections, plus some decent neve in parts. Said blank sections provided a couple of entertaining rock/turf cruxes. The route kept us guessing almost to the very top, where there was almost a resort to combined tactics to get round a final chockstone. Topping out to the remains of the sunset above an inversion was the icing on the cake. Many thanks to Andrew Stevenson for the tip-off and to Simon Richardson for an encouraging reply to my email, giving me the ammo I needed to persuade Gav to make the trek from Ullapool!
Temps plummeting high up so it should be in similar nick tomorrow. Not one to do at the moment unless you're happy with IV,5 mixed though. A very different route from the glorious grade II neve/ice solo I enjoyed a couple of years ago. A lot less beautiful but equally good!
