My alarm went off again at 4:30 which was a start of another day climbing on Liathach. The walk in was significantly easier than yesterday due to the snow being frozen so we made quick time and were in the corrie in just over 2hrs. On the walk in the weather was quite nice, however it deteriorated throughout the day. Our objective for the day was George and I was climbing with some university friends, we soloed up to the new steep step which has been generated by a rockfall. It is a very short section but was pretty steep for a grade III and certainly warrants tech 4 . After this step I ran it out up to into the cave which involved lots of digging to get into, and lots of digging to get out of. Due to rope drag and being out the wind we belayed from the cave which was a tad cramped with 3 people! The move out of the cave at the start of pitch 2 was amazing, having to back out of the cave blindly feet first onto a steep section of ice.. Read the full article…

This morning I met up with some friends from the Avon Mountaineering club and headed up to Liathach to climb the classic Poacher’s Fall. Due to the weather improving in the afternoon we decided to have a lie in and meet at the car park at 6 and accept the fact that we would be queueing. There were some showers first thing in the morning but they soon cleared and the cloud started to lift above the tops. We had a very atmospheric, but hard going walk in with plenty of wet snow low down and unconsolidated snow in the coire. Once we arrived in the coire we were pleased to see only one other team heading up to Poacher’s, which meant that we wouldn’t be queueing too much. The ice on the route was fantastic, with first time placements all the way up the route, ice doesn’t get much better. On the first pitch some of the ice was a bit cruddy so protection was a bit limited. Due to having 60m ropes we ended up climbing all of the difficulties on the route in 2 pitches. The first. Read the full article…