Pavey Ark - 4th March 2007

What a fantastic day, warm and sunny. I decided o go and have a look at Pavey Ark and walk up Jack's Rake.

I was amazed at the number of people walking up. The world, his dog and childen!
















Pavey Ark













Jack's Rack

Lochaber 23th-25th March 2007

With the prospect of wall to wall sunshine in the North West of Scotland, we headed to the CC hut in Roy Bridge.

Saturday morning we caught the gondola, with about 50 other climbers, up to Aonach Mor. I was beginning to think that the 5 weather websites I had checked were all going to be wrong, it was cloudy. Trudging up by the side of the t-bar, I actually felt sorry for the skiers. You would need to be keen to ski in that amount of mud, rocks and grass!

When we got to the top, it was still misty. We wondered if we would find the snow bollard for that abseil down East Gully. Fortunately a nice man pointed us in the right direction, about 20 yards away! As we were abseiling down, on cue, the mist started to lift.

The success of the morning and the georgeous weather tempted us to try something harder! Grade III perphaps :-) Some of the climbs looked a little thin so we decided on a climb with two parties on it. One party on the second pitch had taken the left hand route and was taking a very long time, the expression 'on thin ice' was appropriate. Another party was on the right hand route, which although looked steeper, was more inviting.

We later found out this was White Shark (IV, 4 ***). Bearing in mind this was my third ice climb, the first, Grade II (25 years a go). My fear of vertical ice had evaporated. On the first pitch my glasses had steamed up!

The second pitch required a traverse, this was a new skill!

Everything went fine until the famous Aonach Mor cornices! Which had now been sitting in the sun for 6 hours and turned to sugar. Despite the struggle of the last ten feet, thinking that the only way was to wait for the ice to re-freeze or tie something to the ice-axe and use it as a grappling hook!

Eventually, we both appeared over the top, only to have to run back down to the gondola. It was an exceptional day!