Stob Corrie nan Lochan & Beinn Udlaidh

Andy, Mark and I headed up to Stob Coire nan Lochan in Glencoe to get a quick route in before that evening's celebrations (New Years Eve). We did the standard approach very quickly not stopping once between the car and corrie base taking around 1:10hrs. Conditions were poor with warm temperatures, the snow was fairly wet and most of the rock was black, ice was still clinging to lots of places though.

Leaving the car in drizzle on the A82.

We headed up for Twisting Gully III 4 *** which is a Cold Climbs Classic. The pitch was a simple steep snow/neve slope which leads you to below the tech 4 crux. From photos I've seen this usually is covered in ice or consolidated snow but for us there was only a thin layer and some old snow ice which made it quite sporting for 4, although still well protected. Above this another snow slope leads to a peg belay. The next pitch is the final hard one with a move through over a chockstone, this again was good fun, and thin, but easier than the previous. Two more pitches of around grade II lead up the finishing section of the gully before going through the cornice. I'd like to go back and do the route in fatter conditions I think as it would probably be more enjoyable.

A damp belay on Twisting Gully.

I pulled through the cornice at 2:10pm and then started bringing Mark and Andy up, we then legged it round and down Broad Gully I before de-gearing and heading back down the valley. We all pretty shocked when we were driving across the bridge in Glencoe at 4:10pm! Poor conditions but a good day, moving very fast.

We began the journey home on Sunday 2nd after a rest day on New Years day. I'd always wanted to climb on Beinn Udlaidh which is small hill near the Bridge of Orchy, but which offer some of Scotlands best pure ice climbing so we went for a look. Due to the recent thaw a lot of the lines weren't in and some had only jsut started re-forming with the last 24 hours of cold temperatures. We went for Quartzvein Scoop IV 4 *** which gave us 3 pitches of climbing, with the middle being the steep and sustained crux. The quality of the ice varies with it being plastic in some places and brittle in other, good screws could be found where needed though. We climbed fairly slowly as I led all the pitches and brought Andy, Mark and Martin up in a continuous line. We topped out just as the sun was dipping below the hills, de-geared and headed down to meet Lewis at the cars.

Myself leading the crux pitch on Quartzvein Scoop.

So in summary of the last two posts an excellent week spent climbing in Scotland in good company. I think we achieved a good balance of climbing and having a bit of holiday. For me the thing that made the trip was the chalet we rented at the Inchree Center - far superior to camping!