1st NMC winter meet of the year

Having got out in November there has been very little chance to do more thanks to a rather poor start to the winter season. The first club trip of the year had something to make up for. A week out the forecasts were looking good too.

Saturday

As the conditions were not up to our earlier hopes Richard and I decided to take it easy and trotted up over Fiacaill Ridge and over to Ben Macdui. On the top we met up with some more of the NMC crowd for lunch before ambling back via the Goat Track to the ski centre. 

Sunday

Despite far worse conditions Jeff and I had a decent day ...and got a route in! It turned out to be a really pleasant day. We walked into Coire an Lochain with Martin (our kind Sherpa who carried a rope in for us). The plan had been to hit Y gully or the Couloir as they looked good the day before. The approach to both in the sparse conditions looked dicey though. That combined with the worse conditions meant we decided to try something different. 

Initially we crossed to the back of the Coire and then found a brill alpine approach on a line of good snow[?!] that lead from the valley floor up to the crags high up right of the Coire well beyond the main buttresses. Coming back left below the cliffs at the top of the Coire we found a lovely 50m pitch of interesting ice up a gully ...and it was in good shape except for the last few metres of rather iffy snow. 

Not a bad weekend really.