A good start to 2025

A significant thaw in the last week of 2024 gave way to much colder weather on 1st January 2025. The thaw had melted away just about all the older snow and there was a lot of rain at all levels. Here on the west coast we have not had a huge amount of snow over the last ten days but there's about 20cm to 30cm general cover higher up and the snow is down to sea level with summit temperatures around -8C.

So, the snow is dry, soft and fluffy because it has not been warmed up and refrozen. There is no base layer of snow - instead the soft snow is sitting on rocks and rubble in most places. Turf and the ground everywhere is pretty well frozen and water courses are freezing up creating cascade ice in streams and on some climbs.

Our chief guide Mike was climbing with Chrissy and Steven this week, teaching climbing skills so that they can go and enjoy climbing independently. They started out by climbing the East Ridge of North Buttress on Stob Ban, a grade II/III that is open to much variation and a turfy mixed climb that suited the conditions very well. There is a choice of pitches low down offering grade III climbing with quite technical short steps interspersed by turfy terraces with the chance to practice a variety of placements of anchors for belays.

Higher up the ridge narrows and becomes a fabulous rocky arete in a fantastic position. Mike led the first four pitches before Chrissy and Steven took over to lead themselves up the remaining five pitches. The descent is a grade I climb down the North Ridge of Stob Ban before a quick and efficient walk down to the Lower Falls in Glen Nevis.

Wednesday was a stunning day after a hard frost with lots of sunshine and amazing views. Chrissy and Steven led themselves up Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor with supervision from Mike all the way. There is a mixture of pitched climbing and moving together alpine style on Curved Ridge, so this is a great route to practice both rope techniques as well as more protection placements, belays and route choice.

When it is as cold as this, lots of ice forms on the approach and in the lower sections of the route. This gave us the chance to try a small grade III pitch of ice climbing on the way to Curved Ridge, as well as placing some ice screws.

​Great Gully is forming ice really quickly and by now it is likely to offer many pitches of fun grade III ice climbing.

Yesterday we went for Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis. Since there has been no transformation of the fluffy snow into useful snow-ice, it was slow going and footery. But there was no boot trail and it was a proper, cold, winter day so it was amazing! The Fallen Block Chimney has very little snow in it so we went underneath the block, and the Eastern Traverse is very simple because it has not been banked out with snow. The crux pitches up The Great Tower and Tower Gap are as fiddley as ever though!

In the current conditions, the best climbing on Ben Nevis (and in most other places) is on steep mixed climbs. Routes such as Gargoyle Wall, Darth Vader, Babylon, Lost The Place have all been climbed recently as well as Centurion on Carn Dearg Buttress by a very strong team of young climbers who spent something like 18 hours climbing, finishing at 3am! Well done team, amazing climbing and I look forward to seeing the images.

The great ridges like Tower Ridge and Castle Ridge, NE |Buttress and Observatory Ridge are fun but slow going with the soft snow on rocks. With no snow-ice at all the gullies such as Green Gully, Comb Gully, Point Five Gully and Zero Gully have nothing in them worth climbing at all. The big snow gullies have some soft snow in them but it is sitting on rubble and rocks, so they are no fun at all right now. There is ice forming fast in drainage lines such as Waterfall Gully, Gemini, Compression Cracks and The Curtain, and there is ice on the Carn Dearg Buttress Cascades close to the CIC Hut which means that there is ice at Beinn Udlaidh, Bridge of Orchy and on the West Face of Aonach Mor. 

We have a couple more good days of weather before the temperature starts to rise on Sunday. Next week looks warmer and wetter. Hopefully it will not melt away all the snow we have currently!