{"id":997,"date":"2010-12-17T18:47:22","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T18:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/?p=997"},"modified":"2010-12-17T18:47:22","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T18:47:22","slug":"happy-days-on-skye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/?p=997","title":{"rendered":"Happy Days on Skye"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Francis Blunt reaching the lowest of the key hooks on the crux of Happy Go Lucky Route (VII,7) in Coireachan Ruadha, Skye. \u201cThere were three lovely positive hooks on the right wall followed by a wonderful shallow smear of ice on the left,\u201d his partner Mike Lates explained. (Photo Mike Lates)<\/p><\/div>\n

On November 30, Mike Lates and Francis Blunt had a brilliant adventure on Skye. \u201cFrancis is on the night watchman scheme at Glenmore Lodge and he gave me quite an education on a hard new mixed line on Bealach Buttress, \u201c Mike explained. The pair set off to make the first winter ascent of Lost Arrow (VS) in Coireachan Ruadha, but similar to other routes in the coire that day, it looked rather black so they followed the nearest available line of ice. This led to a thin crack-line past a couple of roofs which Francis \u201cdispensed with a minimum fuss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was dark by the time I eventually joined him and the improvising continued,\u201d Mike explained on his blog. \u201dBrief relocation was managed at a huge pinnacle on Pinnacle Face before a yawning cleft (Hourglass Crack) cut up through the cliff above. Initially I thought I\u2019d climbed to a dead-end at a huge roof but a break in the right wall allowed us to escape. We got down at half nine in the end, and safely negotiated the snowy road back out of Glen Brittle. Happy Go Lucky Route (VII,7) seemed to fit the laid back way we approached the whole day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following day (December 1), the pair visited The Storr and made the second ascent of Storvegan (VI,8), first climbed by Martin Moran and Martin Welch in January this year. \u201cStorvegan was a route I had tried ten years ago and backed off when bombed by debris from above,\u201d Mike told me. \u201cWith Francis in such good form it was a must. Conditions were ideal once we got onto the roof section with ice, consolidated snow and frozen turf. Francis polished off the crux without much hassle and even I stayed on! The line is superb because of its position, and although the climbing is imbalanced technically, I thought it was well worth three stars!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On November 30, Mike Lates and Francis Blunt had a brilliant adventure on Skye. \u201cFrancis is on the night watchman scheme at Glenmore Lodge and he gave me quite an education on a hard new mixed line on Bealach Buttress, … 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":[7,10],"tags":[95,83,135,145],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-route","category-repeat","tag-francis-blunt","tag-mike-lates","tag-sgurr-mhic-choinnich","tag-storr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","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=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1002,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scottishwinter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}