UKC

Hi.  Haven't been on the Ben for a couple of weekends.  Does anyone know if Ledge and/or CMD crest is basically all rock now given the heat we've had.  I suspect so, but hard to tell from SAIS pics.  Old knackered (rock) crampons vs sharp ones issue   Thanks.

Looking at https://mobile.twitter.com/cicwebcam I would expect there to still be snow lying on both, particularly the approach to ledge route and the hill climb at the end of CMD. If I were heading to either tomorrow I would definitely pack crampons, but wouldn't be surprised if they stayed in the bag.

I wore

crampons the whole way up Ledge Route today and needed them at least 75% of the way on brick hard snow. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb0aG4dNbx5/?hl=en-gb

The traverse at the start along the ledge is a bit thin. The Neve is superb. some rock to climb on - all rather alpine and very good. You could head further up No 5 and traverse in to the mushroom rock.

Thanks very much guys. Yep, sharp ones in, and nearly there right now. All looks awesome. Cheers!

Up and down ledge route on Saturday, I had crampons on the whole time and only took them off on descent from Coire na ciste. Some bare rock to climb over but the ridge still very much requires crampons and judging by the weather not much has changed. 

Agreed.  And what a day!  But answering my orig question: you can get by with your old trashed crampons (long as they're good enough for hard neve)  and -- specifically for a CMD descent if you go that way -- take them off for most of it.  A lot of rock.

I've not done ledge route, but will be up that way in a few weeks. My partner doesn't have crampons though...is Ledge Route something you could do in these late season conditions with just some microspikes? Otherwise we'll probably stick to the CMD.

..is Ledge Route something you could do in these late season conditions with just some microspikes? 

Absolutely not. If there's enough hard snow on Ledge Route to require spikes of any sort then you're effectively on winter mountaineering terrain, for which decent crampons (and of course an axe) would be an awful lot more secure. I would not use microspikes on anything more than a moderately steep-ish walk, and even then with care and only selectively depending on conditions.

This opinion piece chimes with my own view: "If the terrain is serious enough to require carrying an ice axe, I will also take crampons. No exceptions."

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/articles/opinions/microspikes_-_use_with_care...

Of course in a few weeks conditions will have changed a lot. Seems unlikely you'd need full winter kit, but it wouldn't be unknown in May. Worth checking again in the lead-up to your trip.

Figured as much on the North face, ta. Likely to spend more time on Skye anyway which I'm more familiar with and is less wintry.

Sorry, I hope I didn't give the impression that anything other than full-on crampons would be adequate for the Ledge Route.

Many of us have multiple pairs of crampons in different states of wear, and I usually want to use my older worn pairs when amongst lots of rocks/mixed less-steep stuff to save wear on newer pairs.  But they are always pretty meaty crampons compared to any kind of micro spike.

CMD also requires proper crampons not spikes.  It's a steep hard packed slope leading down to it from the Ben.

Have fun.

It's not too difficult or time-consuming to sharpen a pair of crampons. Sometimes you have to take a fair bit of metal off but a good file (Bahco for instance) can do that quite quickly. Just try to take a similar amount off each spike.

That's why you don't want to waste good sharp crampons scrambling mostly over rock