Cornucopia

Great weather and conditions

After spending every minute looking at the forecast to find a weather window, one finally came today and I was free to get out.  Earlier in the week my flatmate Blair agreed to go climbing which was great and then asked if Iain could join us.  Again, great news as I would have two rope guns.

Iain getting stuck in to the crux pitch

Then Blair pulled out which meant I had to climb with Iain.  I got a little nervous as Iain never climbs easy routes and always climbs with very strong climbers.  Oh well, what's the worst that could happen?  So we had an early start and headed into Ben Nevis and we were both keen for a route high and left on the Ciste.  It was great to see that two other climbers had woken early, walked in early and put in a great set of tracks up to our route.

However the problem was that they went onto our climb!  Gutted.  So instead we headed over to Number 3 Gully buttress to get established on a route.  This turned out to be a non starter.  The whole crag was coved in a 5 millimetre layer of ice, choking all the cracks and covering all the edges.  Iain suggested it would be hard and scary, I obviously didn't argue.

Iain on small footholds but cool as a cucumber

Instead we climbed Cornucopia (VII 9) as its a big wide crack and turned out to give two nice pitches of climbing and a mega cornice to dig through.  It was the best outcome as the team on our original plan were taking quite a while to get established into the crux as it was choked with ice.  I'm not even sure they managed to top out.  Great day non the less.  Just need more days like this.  Unfortunately its thawing tomorrow.

The other team on our intended route...one day I might climb this.