Quieter today on Ben Nevis

The good conditions and weather are still with us and Point Five Gully was much quieter today. The chimney pitch is getting hacked up a wee bit, but still good climbing at a very reasonable grade on good ice. Hadrian's Direct, Sickle, Zero Gully and Orion Face Direct were busy and the shower of gear dropped today was much less! Plenty of happy folk out using the extra hours sunshine and climbing into the evening. Very alpine indeed,

The plateau was very windy, as was Coire Leis in descent. This south-east wind was not at all noticable on the routes.

Hi Alan,

Your phrase 'magnetic ice' pulled the crowds to the Ben; the North Face car park was probably never as busy as yesterday and Sheffield must have been half empty.

Tim and I had a good day on Smiths route yesterday plus I had the chance to take plenty of photos of other routes. Only the second pitch is hard on Smiths but I had fitted new picks on my Taakoons and twanged them in hard in order to pull myself over from the icicle to the ramp. After trying for a while I got pumped and had to rest a bit... It makes a lot of sense to file the teeth at the bottom down a bit.

Lots of people out on the Ben, more than I have ever seen. The most notable thing was that Blair Fyffe and Ian Parnell tried and I suppose managed a new route on Indicator wall. It looked very hard.

Cheers,

Henning.
Thanks for the photos (AK) . Smith's looks like a 'breeze'