You take the high road and I'll take the M6

This weekend marked the beginning of what hopefully will be a winter-long ritual of harrowing long drives. It was exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly because I had never driven the big red DMM party bus before, which was particularly exciting for the passengers. Secondly because we nearly got hit by a shooting star. Twice. And thirdly we went climbing.

The extreme seconding team on the Ventricle

After a cosy night in the van me, Rob and Ben trekked in to Coire nan Lochain by the light of the full moon and were rewarded by some nice hoared up buttresses. Most excitingly a flaming ball seemed to pass very close over our heads, nearly making the ground what seemed to be only 20m away. If anyone has any expertise on the subject I would like to know whether this is possible or was I hallucinating?

Rob was keen for something hard so we went for Ventricle VII/8 because it has a plethora of good ledges to belay off and some interesting climbing inbetween them. Rob did a stirling job of torquing, crawling, bridgeing and offwidthing and me and Ben followed with much scratching and popping of axes. The hot aches were particularly severe, hitting about twice per pitch and causing me more pain than I can ever remember experiencing on a winter route before....

The day ended, as it should, in the chip shop with plenty of saturated fat and carbonated drinks. Next in the recovery plan was the Glenmore Lodge bar where I had a rehydrating shandy and met up with my friend Becky to make plans for Sunday.

We decided to head for the infrequently visited Stag Rocks to climb Albino IV/5, because we liked the picture in the guidebook. We made it to the base after a long slog over the scoured plateau and then some deep snowdrifts on the lee side. We stood at the bottom and did the normal thing of proclaiming that it looked extremely easy and we'd walk it. However, the first pitch, despite being easy angled was pretty devoid of hooks or footholds, my calves got very pumped, my axes got very blunt and our overconfidence got a bit dented but I made it to the belay nonetheless. Next it was Becky's turn on an exciting airy traverse round the corner and up a blocky groove with some great turf placements saving the day. Then it was just a womble up a snow slope to the top and back to the van for tea and cake....

Ohno hot aches....

'Hero' Rob Greenwood on forst pitch of Ventricle

Becky Stedham on first pitch of Albino

After another visit to Smiffy's we could finally psyche ourselves up for the drive back. We suffered a puncture (which was dealt with with pitstop efficiency by Rob and Ben) then unbelievably had another run in with an intergalactic object that seemed to be aiming for us! (Or we were hallucinating again)
And finally we were safely back in North Wales,  for some badly needed sleep and recovery before the next two day hit.



Concentrating hard on the road....