Sharon, Mac and I decided to take a look at Coire Farchal on Dreish today. As we drove down Glen Clova in the dark there was some unexpected and impressive lightening flashes.
We headed up in to Coire Farchal with the snow lying properly from about 500m and climbed a route called Silver Threads Among The Gold. This is a very good IV,5 put up by Henning Wackerhage, Simon Richardson and Tim Chappell in March 2013. We climbed the route in four pitches as opposed to the three described and it’s definitely worth thinking about breaking the long pitches down as rope drag was a problem. The bottom two pitches, as described, gave some excellent climbing with exposed turf well frozen, good ice on the “short impending headwall” and good gear where required.
The “steep turf wall” on pitch three was buried under snow and the older snow hadn’t consolidated; this forced a traverse right to reach a break with some frozen turf.
A great day out in good company in a quiet coire.
