Cairngorms: North and South for a weekend of winterfun.

A busy weekend! Yesterday Andy and I were driving up Glen Muick at 6:30 following a Car and I was thinking the place would be busy. The other car was slick and they were off before we had parked up, but that was to be a bonus!
On the snowy walk in this guy gave us a low down on conditions, snowy was his take on things.

Thankfully we had team slick in front and they broke trail all the way to the coirre lip, waste deep powder and breaking trail, and still only the 1st of Nov.
Anyway the helpful other team looked liked they had other plans and we were left to swim down into the Coirre and the start of the routes.
Lochnagar was officially plastered.

An hour or so later we were at the bottom of Shadow Buttress A, a classic 300mt IV5 mountaineering route. We opted for the alternative start of Bells route to give us two routes for the day. This was an old fashioned route, with good turf, and little gear!

Andy dispatched the Crux of the whole route on the second pitch with one gymnastic move over the overhanging Iron shaped face you can see here.

The rest of the route is long! 6 pitches in total saw us top out just before it got dark, after being visited by the Mountain Rescue Helicopter whilst we were still on the route.

All that remained now was the 2hour walk back off the hill in the dark. To complete a fantastic but tiring day.

Today Becky and I headed off to Cairngorm to make the first few turns of the season.

What a day, the Gorms looked magical this morning, and the weather was brilliant all day. Surprisingly despite being open yesterday, Becky still managed to sniff out some fresh powder and we had a good day, in good snow! Lets hope there are many more weekends like this one, as winter sets in!