Castle Ridge.

The reason why Elved wears two different boots is that he has a prosthetic foot. He was in a horrible climbing accident a few years ago that left him one foot fewer than he had before. Elved is not the kind of person to let this hold him back though and he has competed in climbing competitions since, as well as enjoying some ice climbing last year. This year, up with Tony again for more ice climbing, there is not much ice to climb but there are plenty of challenging days to enjoy.

With just a light dusting of snow we went for Castle Ridge today. We had a colder start which did not last long. If you were quick you might have made it to the remaining patches of ice before they went soft but we went for a nice steady walk in and a ridge that is always good fun. Castle Ridge is quite slippery though and requires much more careful footwork than ice climbing so it was a real test. There was a little snow on the ledges but not much to be honest.

It was not so windy on top and we knew there was an easy descent down the snow in the Red Burn so we went to Carn Dearg and down from there. The boulder field descent direct from Castle Ridge is pretty tough at the best of times. The thaw did not melt away all the snow in the Red Burn and it is still good to go down. It looks like we might get some more snow over the next few days as well.