{"id":5966,"date":"2016-02-19T15:28:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T15:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/?p=5966"},"modified":"2016-02-19T15:28:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T15:28:26","slug":"remote-and-snowy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/?p=5966","title":{"rendered":"Remote and Snowy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andy

Andy Nisbet on the first ascent of Poseidon (III,5) on the east side of A\u2019Chralaig in the Western Highlands. This rarely visited cliff lies above Lochan na Cralaig to the north of Loch Cluanie. (Photo Steve Perry)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cDriving towards Ben Nevis on February 10, it became obvious around Loch Laggan that all the hills were very white and swamped with soft snow,\u201d Andy Nisbet writes. \u201cUnable to think of any sensible, or at least accessible, new routes, we turned north at Spean Bridge and headed towards Glen Shiel, where at least I knew of a relatively easy new route which we could climb in poor conditions. I admit now I\u2019d forgotten what a long approach it was.<\/p>\n

I had spotted an unclimbed crag above Lochan na Cralaig in 2000 when climbing a route on remote Sail Chaorainn and looking a long way across the valley. 2001 was a great year for winter climbing and I visited the crag in January with Dave McGimpsey. We climbed the longest gully and the longest ridge both at Grade III in excellent conditions. I don\u2019t think we put the rope on, so we even bagged the Munro of A\u2019 Chralaig in the afternoon sun. I went back the following winter with clients of Martin Moran\u2019s, climbing the left-bounding ridge of an amphitheatre again at Grade III. There was still time to do another route, with the plan that I didn\u2019t want to make the long approach again. A groove at the back of the amphitheatre looked fairly straightforward but I soon discovered that it had smooth rock and limited protection. Hard moves well above protection defined the grade as VI,6 although its overall feel wasn\u2019t as hard (Kraken).<\/p>\n

But there was still a line, and 14 years dulls the memory of the slog up the back of A\u2019 Chralaig. I had told Steve Perry and Jonathan Preston it would be a fairly easy day, but there was a lot of snow and it was my first day out after the flu. So I arrived on the ridge a long time after the others, by which time they were rather cold. The next problem was how to descend to the crag when it was misty, snowing and the ridge had a continuous soft cornice. We decided to rope up and send Jonathan (the heaviest) to collapse the cornice. (Actually he was so cold he insisted on going first, and we weren\u2019t going to argue). He duly collapsed it, and it wasn\u2019t as big as we\u2019d feared.<\/p>\n

There hasn\u2019t been much of a build-up this year so we didn\u2019t try the gully descent (actually it would have been OK) and outflanked the cliff to return to the ridge right of the descent gully. Most of it looked straightforward but there was a barrier wall blocking entry to a flying groove set in an impressive prow. We soloed up to the barrier wall where unfortunately you could escape into the gully. But we weren\u2019t going to do that, so I volunteered to traverse under the wall in the hope of returning left above it. The traverse was committing above a big drop but it all fell into place as soon as I\u2019d made the traverse. Great runners encouraged a swing out left above the overhang and a couple of moves later, it was all over. Jonathan led up the flying groove to a final horizontal arete. We decided on a grade of III,5 and called it Poseidon, keeping the mythological theme.<\/p>\n

The weather still wasn\u2019t great but I was determined to finish off the crag and climb a route on steep but more broken ground right of all the existing routes. There wasn\u2019t much time so we didn\u2019t take any gear and traversed under all the existing routes to find an easy gully. Actually I hadn\u2019t expected it to be as easy as Grade I but there was a lot of snow. Steve and I plodded up the gully whereas Jonathan decided on a steeper line to the right. After a while, we were tempted by an exposed ramp (The Creel \u2013 III), which led up the steep left wall of the gully on to the top of the right-hand ridge (Curled Buttress). This was easy enough although the drop under our heels kept us on our toes. Jonathan crossed the easy gully higher up and also found a turfy line to tempt him out left.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice there are still some remote crags in good scenery and which no-one goes to, even if the routes are a bit short for the long approach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDriving towards Ben Nevis on February 10, it became obvious around Loch Laggan that all the hills were very white and swamped with soft snow,\u201d Andy Nisbet writes. \u201cUnable to think of any sensible, or at least accessible, new routes, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[601,43,124,372],"class_list":["post-5966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-route","tag-a-chralaig","tag-andy-nisbet","tag-jonathan-preston","tag-steve-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5971,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions\/5971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}