On Monday, Neil Adams and Ali Rose enjoyed a big 18-hour day out completing what they have called a 'Lochaber Traverse', taking in routes on as many winter crags as possible across seven Munros in the area. The total distance covered was around 33km with 3700m of elevation gain, 1800m+ of which involved graded climbing.
I'm pleased to hear it's not just me who found pitch 2 of Tat Gully (IV 4) a little harder than expected. I backed off while stood just above where Ali is in that photo, while trying to squeeze it in as a quick second route at the end of 2023. It felt tricksome (as had the start of pitch 1 in December's lean-but hard conditions) and the route-finding was surprisingly inobvious, for a gully!
To think of having all those moves, metres and miles still lying ahead.... Impressive.
Good effort Neil and Ali, love to see this sort of thing.
Makes me want to go out and do something similar. Maybe that Glencoe Classic Rock linkup or that Cairngorm one, although the Cairngorm one looked like I'd need to have quite a bit more fitness in the legs!
Cairngorm 4000s via winter routes was a fun (and comparatively mellow) day out. Trying to link all the Cairngorms Cold Climbs routes in a day would be well beyond me.
BTW, If anyone fancies repeating or improving on these, get in touch - I'm happy to share any beta you want
Both of those stand out as a couple of my happiest days climbing. The cairngorm one is further but the Glen coe one probably harder due to the difficulty of getting conditions and dealing with a lot of steep hillsides and risky climbing. I've notes / splits on both if you decide you're keen
Yep. I was definitely having an off day (well morning anyway) and I think feeling tired and worried about my performance added into the fact that of our 10 nuts, 4 hexes and 5 quickdraws - 2 nuts were in the belay, and I'd already used 2 nuts and a hex to protect the first two moves of the pitch. better to back off than shake myself up even more but its while since I backed off a grade IV!
In reply to arose: We'd a lot of ice in February 2002, from memory not thick enough for screws but can imagine it was a different experience entirely. Well done to you and Neil, looks an interesting big day out.
> The cairngorm one is further but the Glen coe one probably harder due to the difficulty of getting conditions and dealing with a lot of steep hillsides and risky climbing.
Has the Cairngorm one been repeated Ali?
I can certainly see the Glencoe one is harder in terms of the climbing and terrain, but them's some serious miles from Lochnagar to Beinn a' Bhuird...
As far as I am aware theres been a few (4 or more I think) folks try and do it in a day but not quite made it for a variety of reasons. I did hear of another team doing it over a couple of days which seems way more civilised.
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