The last two days Euan, Paul and I have managed to get together for the ClimbNow “annual” winter climbing meet up. It’s a great chance for us to catch up, share ideas and climb some winter routes.
Weather, conditions and time constraints pointed us in the direction of the beautiful Glen Clova in the Angus Glens and we’ve had a couple of excellent days climbing in Winter Coire and Coire Farchal. On Tuesday we climbed Sun Rock Blues. This has a steep technical crux on the first pitch and we varied the third pitch by traversing right at the small cave, which involved a precarious and inelegant belly flop move by me on the lead before reaching easy ground.
Today we visited Coire Farchal with the intention of climbing Silver Threads Among the Gold, but the sun on Tuesday and Wednesday morning meant the initial buttress was looking very black. However, the area around Coffin Dodger and Over the Hill was holding some good ice and we climbed a line starting around Over The Hill and then climbing icy steps on it’s left, a steep ice shield left of the “slot” and finishing up Coffin Dodger. This gave a good line on the day and had some excellent climbing between relaxed belay stances.
Both routes were made easier to protect by carrying a few ice screws and a couple of warthogs. There’s been a fair bit of wind movement of snow and there are some pockets of very firm wind slab around, which should be taken in to account when choosing routes and approaches/descents. It was snowing lightly on a fairly strong south-westerly as we left the glen at mid afternoon. Both days were rounded off with a very pleasant coffee and scone in The Glen Clova Hotel.
