free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Had to find some snow, thought this might be the only place besides the Ben! 8.30 start again. Weather the same again, getting depressing! No hardship to be in the coire though, and was on the snow at the foot of the gully in 2 hours so good going. Just enough snow to be continuous but covered with plenty of stones so need to watch out - got the helmet on. So good to be with axe and crampons, the snow surprisingly decent given the warmth. It all looks a sorry state though, dirty stone covered snow. Near the start of the gully, when I was off to the side, a stone came bounding down the snow and onto the boulders raising clouds of dust. No-one else about sending the stones down, only me here, glad I'm not following somebody! The climb was good anyway, an atmospheric place with the mist ahead. I took my time to savour the experience and stopped many times to look at Dorsal Arete - I toyed with the idea of coming back down again and climbing it but it's longer than I thought! The snow went all the way (just) to the ridge. Off with crampons, a bite to eat, and at the summit just under 2 hours after getting to the snow.
I'd planned an easy descent along the east ridge but lazy nav east rather than a bit south of east took me down a steep rib heading north east. From this I moved left to a snow slope, the snow was too hard for just the boot so an unexpected on with the crampons again! This slope turned into a gully further down, and had a steeper section that I descended facing in and with both the axes, absolutely great stuff. The snow ended above a small cliff so I headed east a bit before going north to the plateau. The gully I'd come down is the 1st one to the east of the summit buttress, as I saw later from the AE. There were some folk doing winter skills in the wide gully further east. A good tramp back to the car and a great day.
