I've looked at bits of water/ice running down this face for years and was delighted to find the theory works when we went for a look. Only the 2nd route on the whole N face of Dearg.

Good to see some proper 'county' troos

Very nice Mike! Was it a long route? Last time I was looking at the face, I noticed a rope on the steep lower face. Any info on what happened?

We kept the rope on for 170m, the full length of the fault but could easily have escaped or unroped after 70m. Get the impression it would ordinarily have been thin smeer of ice to enter a snow gully with a rock step at 60m to finish. We found just feet of thick wide ice the whole way above the starting pitch tho. The ropes were left after the tragedy in '96 when 2 lads mistakenly took a direct line down from the Pinn towards Coruisk. Took 2 days to find them plus most of another to reach them, snow came in, one survived somehow but the other didn't make it. An award was made to an MRT member if I remeber correctly for some outrageous effort to reach them from where the lower finished. O'Brien & Julien's Route is in that vicinity; our line runs close & parallel to the Main Ridge in far less scary territory.