Winter Traverse 2018

The avalanche forecast was high, the weather looked ‘mixed’, it must be time for the annual winter traverse!

Stob a'Choire Odhair summit, (guess who has new waterproof trousers on!)

The full route, an ambitious 7 munro circuit. Never really a likely possibility, but y’know it’s good to have goals.

Original (ambitious) route Plan

Arriving at real food café as the doors opened we had a cheeky breakfast stop before heading to Bridge of Orchy station to meet the rest of the group off the sleeper train.

Beginning the ascent

Having collected team sleeper train, we headed up to the valley to begin the ascent of Stob a'Choire Odhair. Quickly we reached snow line, and easy steps turned into wading through snow, with the occasional comedy fall into a hidden hole.

Heading down into the col, the snow turned to ice pack. At least I wasn’t carrying my crampons for nothing! Fully winter kitted up, we continued our descent.

The original plan was to head along the Aonach Eagach ridge (not that Aonach Eagach!), this being likely to be corniced we changed our route. After much discussion half the group headed down a different way and the rest of us continued for the summit, with plans to join the groups again at camp.

Final climb of Stob Ghabhar

Choosing to contour around, we headed up onto a different ridge, it was alarmingly steep in places, but the snowpack was stable. The ascent was more of a game of mind over matter to make our way to the summit of Stob Ghabhar. The clouds came and went on the summit showing a tiny crack on a cornice near the summit. Staying away from the edge on the ascent was definitely a good call!

Summit selfie on Stob Ghabhar

Coming off the top we made our way along the boundary and into the col where we’d thought about setting up camp. A conspicuous lack of running water and rest of the group meant we needed to head further into the valley.

Descending, we were practically swimming through the snow in places. It was pretty was exhausting, and a bit of a race against sunset (especially as muggins forgot to pack her head torch). Just before nightfall, we found the second half of the group, camped where the stream emerged from the snowline.

Tents were pitched in the dark and it quickly began to rain. I scoffed my pot noodle (top hill food!) and hit the sack.

I fell asleep to the sound of a game of ‘top munro’ being politicised in the background. Tony Braeriach and Jeremy Corbett haunted my dreams.

Sunrise, not raining!

We woke up to glorious weather (as in not raining), and set off, but not before a lengthy game of king/queen of faff.

The plan was to contour round to the next valley dump bags and ascend Meall nan Eun. As it turned out the climb to summit was rather steep. After a quick Ice Axe 101 lesson, we began to ascend.

Views from the contouring

As we climbed chunks of snow started to fall from our footsteps, a few of these started to gain a bit of size. I began to feel a bit (a lot) out of my depth. With 300 m still to climb and feeling a bit nervous about the descent we decided it was time to make a sensible decision and abort the mission.

The actual route 

We had some top sledging action on the descent, (there may have been squealing), and we made our way to the valley floor intact.

Once off the slope we started to relax, I managed to show off my lack of throwing ability in the ensuing snowball fight. Other people with better aim showed off how it should be done, I took two direct hits to the head.

We then marched down the valley to get back to the cars asap, looking forward to café at the end. Perhaps the sketchiest part of the whole day was the crossing around the stream and border fence. Involving a climb around a loose peat cliff above a deep part of the river.

Sketchiest part of the whole day? (Photo: Jim)

Eventually we made it back to the cars and headed back to real food café to round out the trip before going our separate ways.

Winter traverse: Never a disappointing weekend! Great to catch up with everyone 😊

Now to hang up the mountain of wet kit…