by Boris_the_Bold » Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:44 pm
I had the hairiest day I have ever had on Scottish hills on that ridge after a big dump of new snow fell on old snow in early May a few years ago. We were tackling the ridge from South to North and were planning to spend the night in Alltbeithe/Glen Affric YH, so had big overnight packs, which didn't help.
My walking companion and I got as far as the 'bad step about half-way between the two Munros, but didn't fancy the down-climb under new snow (with big packs), nor the bypass path on the east, which was buried under the snow and looked extremely unappealing (v steep snowfield), so we tried backtracking and bypassing on the west side and ended up doing some very hairy clambering about in some horribly steep and loose gullies trying to get back up to the ridge, before giving up and doing some more very hairy down-climbing through loose rock and snow to get down into the glen to the west.
Can't remember whether we had ice axes or not, but it wouldn't have mattered, as none of the difficulties we encountered would not have been solved by having an ice axe and we needed both hands free for a lot of the clinging to loose rocks once we left the main ridge Crampons would also not have helped much.
If you get good firm snow, it would be a wonderful traverse (with crampons), but if you get new snow on top of an old base it could be extremely unpleasant, so BE CAREFUL!
BtB