White Shark - Aonach Mor

After a lot of indecisiveness last night, me, Keith and Neil decided to head up to Aonach Mor today in search of some bumbly ice. The early start was as unpleasant as ever, and I felt physically sick with tiredness the whole car journey up to Fort William (Keith's driving probably wasn't helping matters). Anyway, we finally arrived at the Nevis Range car park in time for the first gondola of the day (this is what winter climbing is all about). We then proceeded to get the chair lift up as far as we could, which was super duper cold with lots of wind and snow to the face.

Although the walk in was only about 45minutes from the top of the chairlift I was dying today. Have had a cold the past couple of days so feeling sorry for myself, and since I couldn't stomach my sandwiches there was no fuel to be burned. boo.

We geared up and headed over to Easy Gully to descend to the base of the crag. We had a choice of abseiling off a snow bollard *puke* or downclimbing. Neil opted for the downclimb, and me and Keith went for the abseil. Felt very very sick sitting back over the edge on that, but it was fine! sadly no photo as there was a crowd of other climbers waiting to get down, and getting rather impatient with us since Neil coiled the ropes horribly and then buggered off down the gully leaving us to sort out the tangles! wooo.

We opted for White Shark (IV 4 ***). The climbing happened pretty quickly, Keith led the first pitch, Neil the second, and I negotiated the scary cornice.

Keith on P1 in the less than perfect weather

Crux was short lived. Both Neil and I had no gear on our pitches, it was all a bit rubbish, shitey ice screws that Neil didn't fancy and just nothing on my pitch really. Kinda scary climbing over the cornice (especially in the strong wind and spindrift) knowing a fall would probably end up in instant death or at least paralysation, but it was fairly straight forward :) I also got to make my first T axe belay.

We then walked back down to discover the chairlift had stopped running so it was a bit more of a walk down to the gondola station, which luckily was still up and running, although it looked like they were about to close it soon after we arrived back. The ski slopes were deserted. The ride back down in the gondola was pretty scary due to the wind, and wasn't helped by being told about the wee cabins having fallen off resulting in numerous deaths in the past (Thanks Neil).

Here are some photos from the day:

Janey seconding pitch 1

Pitch 2

winter belays are cold!

Enroute to battle with the cornice

topping out...hahaha

walking off, the weather much nicer now

Keith pleased at the swift descent.

Lovely relaxing day, followed by a meal at mcdonalds. nom nom.