UKC

Had planned to climb Western Rib yesterday but is was too warm and slushy. We also weren't sure if we were at the start on not. We started up a grassy grove about 20m up the gully to the right of Golden Oldie. There is a mini buttress between GO and what we thought was WR - this appears to be separated from WR by a col. The Ben Nevis guidebook suggests the start is on the right side of WR but this looked much harder than II/III. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

In reply to KennyWright:

You were roughly in the right place. You can do what you did, the L start, which joins the main rib up where you saw, or go over R more and start on that main rib directly; or you can start in the gully to the RHS of the main rib (between WR and Daim Buttress) which fills with ice nicely in winter (as does the start of the main rib), and climb out L onto the rib. No good now though. I have done it all the various ways. They all end at the top. You just have to go the best way based on the conditions. Right now, though, you would be aiming for the easiest way up you can find in that slush. It was like that weeks ago when I was last there. I would prob go the way you went.

In reply to KennyWright:

Ken Applegate (West Coast Mountain Guides) posted OS grid refs for the starts of the summit ribs on his blog at:
http://www.westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk/news/reasonable-on-western-rib-we...

Golden Oldie: NN 18885 73018
Western Rib: NN 18947 72961
Daim Buttress: NN 18985 72916

In reply to BruceM:

I thought this route might be a good choice for the slushy conditions but it wasn't - it needs ice or frozen turn and we had neither!

Agree. When I say we were last there 5-6 weeks ago (can't remember) it was the first weekend of the big thaw and that start was slushy like that so we continued up one of the gullies instead. Which was just holding together OK. Go back in the winter, and all those ways up WR are good fun. See you out there one day.