Simply Epic Adventures: Full Metal Racket

Craig, Mark and Bill chased the weather to Aviemore on Saturday seeking some action on the hill.

A chilly drive with snow on the way up saw us head off into the Sneachda in some seriously blowy spindrift...GREAT FUN at last.

With monster cornices a plenty, wind blowing fresh snow from the SW, we looked for a safe option and saw pleasing scoured avalanche trails out of Alladin's Couloir, so we headed for the buttress with the guide book out.

A very pleasant walk in

After a quick discussion we decided on Original Route (aka Summer Original Route or Patey's Original Route) It's an excellent line at IV 5 on the day we had zero neve and very little frozen turf.

A couple of Tarmigan have a chat - plenty of them about

Mark took the first pitch; a meaty steep groove over some hard steps on finely placed points with just enough gear when necessary. As it turned out, he linked P1 & 2 together to take us to the snowy ramp after 40m.

A quick swap of the ropes between Craig and Mark, and Craig was off up pitch 3. Increasingly steep ground took him to an option of straight up a tenuous crack with a peg just out of reach or a move left onto a platform to think about things. Once on the platform, the route became obvious with the spectacularly exposed traverse on his left. A quick nut in place saw him through; the ledge can't be more than a few inches in places but the hooks give plenty confidence.

High up at the abseil station

An open chimney leads up to the crux open book corner and a little run out; some cool moves and plenty scratching on the right foot saw him over the top and onto the block belay/abseil station.

We abseiled into Alladin's Couloir and down to the bags for some food before a very pleasant walk out.

Swinging about on the abseil

After a very disappointing winter, we knocked off a very good route which felt a bit harder than the grade on the day; anyone expecting a bog-standard IV 5 would be in for quite a surprise we thought.