Number 3 Gully Buttress Direct

Day two with Oli and Paul and what a difference a day makes. Blue skies, light winds and fantastic climbing conditions. Ben Nevis was heaving today with folk dotted all around the mountain. Many routes had queues on so we wandered up to the base of Number 3 Gully Buttress which was pretty much free. Paul and Oli were after a bit of grade 4 climbing so I took them up a direct line to the crux of the original route and also a direct line at the top giving them the Grade 4 tick they were after. The route was in great condition, Kenny took his team up too, Evans took his chap up Two Step and reported amazing ice, Ed took his team up Central Right hand, Green Gully had lots of ascents, as did Thompsons, hard routes getting climbing right of Sioux Wall (Apache maybe). With the thaw and refreeze we have just had, the ice has been fantastic. Unfortunately is wasn't all good news today, two climbers fell out of Zero Gully, sadly one didn't survive. Today I was working for the Ice Factor.