Ice climbing at last.

Today I was feeling a bit nervous. It was slightly warmer than expected, the snow was deep and soft and we went ice climbing. Now I don't normally get nervous when I go ice climbing (after all, it is the meaning of life) but I have not done any meaningful ice climbing this winter so I thought I would be a bit rusty. As it turned out the avalanche report recorded a Considerable Hazard for today instead of the Moderate forecast but the ice was absolutely brilliant and it felt so good!

Tommy, Phil and I went to climb The Cascade in Coire na Ciste of Ben Nevis. We linked up a couple of nice pitches lower down before going across to The Cascade. We climbed this straight up from the bottom and found the ice to be solid, dry and crispy with first time placements all the way up. It's fat too! Plenty of wading and digging got us up to Experts Choice finish which has little ice in it but was good fun to get us onto the plateau before a brilliant slide down Number Four Gully back to the coire floor. Wendigo and Central Gully were climbed as well as some ice at the start of Diana by the BMG winter test groups.