You don't know until you try

Previously, I have described winter climbing in Scotland as more like cragging than mountaineering. But it's not always that way. I'm writing this feeling completely stuffed after a day out yesterday that really worked us hard, yet we only climbed about a pitch and a half of proper ice.All the elements of a big mountain day were there. A 4am start, a long approach (3 hours) post-holing through knee deep snow, climbing sketchy, unconsolidated snow sloughing off rock slabs, dehydration. It's not always perfect ice and sunshine here. We went to Creag an Dubh Loch, a fantastic remote granite cliff in the Cairngorms. I had rock-climbed there in summer and had always wanted a rare winter tick. We were aiming for Vertigo Wall, a classic grade VII mixed route, but quickly saw that sun during the week had stripped it bare. Time for plan B.

Creag an Dubh Loch. We started up Labyrinth Direct, the obvious central S-shaped groove, before bailing left onto snow basin and ice above.

 We headed up Labyrinth Direct, which has a classic steep ice crux to get past an overhanging wall. I led off up the easier lower section, moving together up a few pitches to the base of the steeper upper section, ploughing a trench up steep unconsolidated snow. From here we could see the crux was complete with ice, but the conditions were rapidly deteriorating, the warming day melting the ice, as chunks peeled off the rock above and pelted us. The crux consisted comitting to a protectionless smear of ice on the wall, and with it no longer solidly attached it was an easy decision to bail and traverse sideways to an easier route. So a bit of traversing on snow-covered slabs, more snow wading, a couple of pitched of ice, and some digging over a cornice and we were up! Ready for a 3 hour walk out. All great alpine training I told myself. 

  Left: Looking up at crux of Labyrinth Direct.                   Right: James finally on decent ice.

More pics here: Chad put together a video of the day here.  It mostly shows me digging my way up windslab and the cornice at the top!