In reply to sphagnum:
'How to get on (and up) early season routes
By James Edwards
The early climber catches the first route. Or was it something about a bird? Anyhow, it’s dark it’s cold and the calendar says it should be winter so lets cry havoc and release the dogs of winter! Or maybe not. Back in the day, tales abound of ‘I did Point five in August under 20m of neve; it’s not real winter these days. These young climbers are kidding themselves scratching up these routes and spoiling them for everyone!’ Well granddad is often grumpy because he knows that the only way he can get up Fall Out Corner, the VI,7 classic of the northern corries, is in summer and then at the end of a very tight rope. But, before we dismiss the generations before us as being passed it and jealous, let’s think on what’s gone before us and pause before we let fly the tools.
There is no doubt that climbing ethics are changing; I don’t want to put a value judgement on it, that’s the job of another article. But in some regard the changing nature of the game is a product of our changing conditions; when the neve is thick there are queues on the out there routes on the Indicator wall on the Ben. But for the other 95% of the time when bare slabs abound it’s the traditional gullies that see the traffic. Those hiking up the Ben path who want to get away from the crowds are now venturing more and more onto the high quality Nevis mixed lines as these days it’s once in a blue moon that you’ll see the white stuff dribbling down over those blank Ben walls.
And so: the rise and rise of mixed climbing. In the 70’s some thought of mix climbing as something to do when conditions weren’t in and saw it as a curious thing to want to do when it was obvious that any right thinking climber would want to climb ice and neve. Well these days beggars can’t be choosers and mixed climbing is now arguably the most popular aspect of Scottish Winter climbing.
But here lies the rub; it’s a limited resource, a route changes with the number of ascents, particularly if it suffers the weight of those climbers who aren’t quite patient enough to wait for the big freeze to come and turn the turf from a Gardener’s Question Time exhibit to a winter climber’s frozen dream. But, hey, life is short and I’ve driven all this way and I can see another party over the other side of the corrie on a route, so my route must be in good condition? Mustn’t it? Well not necessarily so. I first climbed Fall out Corner in the 90’s. That year it was the first route of the season for me. We’d waited out the days of quasi winter and watched 4 days of cold northerly winds riding in from the Arctic such the heat out of the high hills. The result was every placement in the corner pitch was on bomber ice and turf. It was so enjoyable that I was forgetting to put gear in and Sam kept calling up from the belay reminding me that 10m falls weren’t pretty. The thing was, I couldn’t have fallen off if I’d wanted to; the turf was that good. About 8 years later I climbed the route again and it felt like a different route. All the turf had gone and I was scratching hooks and torques out of the corner now. This still gave interest but I, and many others, preferred it with the turf. OK, I’m harping on now. We’ve all seen great lumps of greenness on the crag aprons and shook our heads, but I bet a fair lot of us have also had a placement rip because it wasn’t properly frozen...'
http://www.thefrontpoint.com/default.aspx?PageID=EarlySeasonClimbing