It was a sociable day in the Bridge of Orchy area today. Cameron and I bumped in to Neil, James and team in the car park. They were heading to Beinn Udlaidh and then on the walk in to Creag Coire an Dothaidh it was great to see Bruce and team. Both Bruce and Neil asked in passing if I’d seen Glenn Gordon’s Facebook post about Fahrenheit 451, being a little bit of a Luddite I hadn’t, which was both a blessing and a curse.
I first looked at climbing this route in 1989. It doesn’t form well often and I’ve never managed to be in the right place at the right time. The top section seems to build fairly regularly, but the bottom often looks lean and sketchy. Today it looked the best I’ve seen it, so Cameron and I decided to go for it.
We climbed the route in 4 pitches, 3 short and 1 long. The bottom was thin in places, there were sections where the ice had built over powdery snow and some of the higher ice, although great to climb, was dripping fairly heavily. However, Cameron and I had a good adventure and a long held itch has been scratched. When I got home I read Glenn’s post, if I’d read it before we probably wouldn’t have got on the route.
After finishing Fahrenheit 451 we nipped back around had a drink and some food and then climbed Centigrade. The middle section of this was fun, but below and above there was a fair bit of soft snow and sections of ice over powder again.
We walked out with Bruce’s team who’d had a good day on Salamander Gully and it was great to catch up with him. Back at the car park Neil, James and team were there again plus Greg. Again brilliant to catch up with him as I don’t see him often enough these days.
Below freezing down to road level all day today. Light winds and no precipitation during the day. There’s still plenty of unconsolidated snow around on lee slopes and areas that have cross loaded.
I’m struggling to upload photos this evening for some reason, so will add some when I get that sorted.
