Saturday 14 February 2009

Vertical Turf, Not Just Myth!



I was out on Meall nan Tarmachan today with Alan and Colin for an intro to winter climbing course. We went to Creag an Lochain, Arrow Buttress and climbed Arrow Chimney (IV). This South facing crag is only 20 minutes from the road and offers some intresting and varied climbing. Todays route was a mix of turf and ice, so lots of warthogs required. The route broke down nicely into a 60m pitch up the narrow lower part of the chimney to a grass terrace and turf belay. Pitch 2 was 30m up a wider chimney fault with some good steep moves on ice and turf to a good rock belay on the right. The 3rd and final pitch 60m climbed ice into a gully which had a couple of steep turf bulges to turn to another turf belay. We came down and rigged a bottom rope on some ice lower down and looked at climbing movement a bit more before heading back to the car. The thaw is deffinately on, but things are holding on quite well. There a number of easy routes on the crag and at least 1 steep ice line on the far right that is not in the guide.

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