{"id":7720,"date":"2022-02-22T21:11:14","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T21:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/?p=7720"},"modified":"2022-02-24T17:29:24","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T17:29:24","slug":"livingstone-on-a-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/?p=7720","title":{"rendered":"Livingstone On a Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Tom Livingstone making an early repeat of Happy Tyroleans (IX,10) in Coire an Lochain. This fierce Northern Corries test-piece was first climbed by the Austrian team of Florian Schranz, Heinz Zak and Egon Netzer during the 2001 International Winter Meet and is one of the most difficult new Scottish winter routes ever put up by an overseas team. (Photo Ryan Balharry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It has been a challenging season so far with limited snow during the first part of the winter and a continuous run of storms through January and February. High standard climbing and new route activity has been (literally) thin on the ground. Determination, enthusiasm, and talent can take you a long way in Scottish winter however, and Tom Livingstone has just returned to Chamonix after a two-week trip that yielded a very impressive run of routes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 Feb \u2013 Central Grooves (VII,7), Stob Coire nan Lochan, with Tim Exley, Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 Feb \u2013 Hobgoblin (VI,7), Ben Nevis with Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 Feb \u2013 Hanging Garden (VII,8), Ben Nevis with Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 Feb \u2013 Winter Chimney (IV,5), Ben Nevis with Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 Feb \u2013 Lost the Place (V,5), Ben Nevis with Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 Feb \u2013 Point Five Gully (V,5), Ben Nevis with Tom Seccombe, Tim Exley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 Feb \u2013 Indicator Wall (V,4), Ben Nevis (solo)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 Feb \u2013 Smith\u2019s Route (V,5), Ben Nevis with Tom Seccombe, Tim Exley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 Feb \u2013Tomahawk Crack (VIII,9), Ben Nevis with Tom Seccombe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11 Feb \u2013 Bavarinthia (IX,9), Coire an Lochain with Tom Seccombe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13 Feb \u2013 Happy Tyroleans (IX,10), Coire an Lochain with Tom Seccombe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15 Feb \u2013 Bandit (VII,8), Beinn Eighe with Ella Wright<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18 Feb \u2013 Immortal Memory (IX,9), Beinn Eighe with Matt Glenn, Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19 Feb \u2013 Local Hero (VIII,9), An Teallach with Matt Glenn, Callum Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom\u2019s trip included the Young Alpinist Group meet and a week welcoming some Slovenian friends to the delights of Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m back home now but I kind of wish I could stay another month in Scotland\u201d Tom told me. \u201cI really enjoyed the two weeks I spent there, and although Scotland is tricky it\u2019s flipping amazing! I guess we were lucky with the weather and conditions and fingers crossed it stays good for you all! There were so many routes I remembered I\u2019d wanted to do for ages, and unfortunately the list is only getting longer! I was focussed on the Young Alpinist Group and climbed with them and we climbed some tricky routes that I\u2019d wanted to do for a while. We also hosted some Slovenian friends (strong but new to Scottish winter). I\u2019ll try to make the next trip a more personal one!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postscript 23 Feb: Greg Boswell made the following comment on Instagram regarding the grade of Happy Tyroleans – “I personally think this route needs the same treatment as when The Secret got given X,10. It\u2019s majorly over-graded and this factor is probably stopping people from trying it. Happy Tyroleans is VIII,9 at the most, maybe even Tech 8. Not bringing this up as anything to do with Tom\u2019s ascent, I just really enjoyed the route and think many others would too if the word got out that it\u2019s not what the guidebook suggests. Just thought I\u2019d comment this as @simon_scottishwinter is prob the best way to get the word out there before any new guidebooks etc.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you Greg for the very helpful feedback. For consistency, I always use the published grade in my reports unless there is a strong consensus otherwise, but hopefully your comment will encourage more folk to try the route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a challenging season so far with limited snow during the first part of the winter and a continuous run of storms through January and February. High standard climbing and new route activity has been (literally) thin on … 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":[186,10],"tags":[48,23,8,458,895,717,25,134,893,531,894],"class_list":["post-7720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-repeat","tag-an-teallach","tag-beinn-eighe","tag-ben-nevis","tag-callum-johnson","tag-ella-wright","tag-matt-glenn","tag-northern-corries","tag-stob-coire-nan-lochan","tag-tim-exley","tag-tom-livingstone","tag-tom-seccombe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7720","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=7720"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7732,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7720\/revisions\/7732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}