Yesterday I had so much fun climbing Twisting Grooves that I went back up to Stob Coire nan Lochan today for more. I am climbing with Rintje this week, who has been coming here for climbing for eleven years. He has seen the full spectrum of climbing conditions in that decade! Today was pretty good, a very nice day but only average climbing conditions. We started up Twisting Grooves and went into Moonshadow, a classic combination at IV,5. If the Right branch of Twisting Gully is iced up you can start up that to get onto Moonshadow but there was no ice today so we stuck with the mixed climbing. We followed Niels and Chris up the first pitch of Twisting Grooves which was a bit easier than leading it first yesterday. The hooks are more obvious and the ledges cleaned off. It's then easy to get across to Moionshadow which takes the huge and obvious groove on th eright. It is really turfy to start off with and has plenty of what would be loose blocks in the summr. The turf was sufficiently solid today, but certainly didn't inspire much confidence. A cautious aproach was best! The top chimney of Moonshadow is brilliant though. Solid rock with brilliant hooks and great fun, gymnastic climbing all the way to the top of the crag. Other teams were climbing Dorsal Arete plus the direct start, Twisting Grooves, Raeburn's Route on Central Buttress and Ordinary Route on Summit Buttress . We walked down Broad Gully which was untracked. It would be amazing on skis!
1 Comment
Tom
5/2/2020 21:11:10
Cracking write ups as always.
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AuthorMike Pescod Self reliance is a fundamental principle of mountaineering. By participating we accept this and take responsibility for the decisions we make. These blog posts and conditions reports are intended to help you make good decisions. They do not remove the need for you to make your own judgements when out in the hills.
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