A wintry Ben Lomand - First walk with crampons
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 11:41 pmBen Lomand January 2015.My first winter hill with crampons and an ice axe.
Got to the summit with no problems, lots of people about, some with crampons, some not. Not many people coming via or down the Ptarmigan ridge, but met a few guys who said it was 'ok', so decided to go down that way.
Found this quite intimidating as lots of verglas ice on the rocks and in a few places there are fairly steep drop offs. Crampons stuck well but not very confident on this terrian.
At one point Alistair had to stick the ice axe in for me as a hand hold to use as I came down backwards over some verglas.
Brilliant to be safely down the ridge, quite a hairy experience for me. The rest of the walk was easy, deep snow in some places and lots of fun to walk on.
All in all a very fun proper winter walk, Ben Lomand very beautiful in these conditions.
- Starting the climb
- Views out to Loch Lomand
- Sunshine
- A well trodden path up
- True blue skies
- A raven on its proud perch
- Almost time for the crampons
- What a view
- Crampons out , much better :)
- A cold summit cairn
- Ice formations up close
- Hoping I will not have to use this
- Summit selfie
Got to the summit with no problems, lots of people about, some with crampons, some not. Not many people coming via or down the Ptarmigan ridge, but met a few guys who said it was 'ok', so decided to go down that way.
Found this quite intimidating as lots of verglas ice on the rocks and in a few places there are fairly steep drop offs. Crampons stuck well but not very confident on this terrian.
At one point Alistair had to stick the ice axe in for me as a hand hold to use as I came down backwards over some verglas.
- Down the first bit of difficulty
- About to start the second part of the ridge
- View back up the Ptarmigan ridge
- Safely down the ridge - a challenge accomplised
Brilliant to be safely down the ridge, quite a hairy experience for me. The rest of the walk was easy, deep snow in some places and lots of fun to walk on.
- Wonderful wintry views
- Going back down
All in all a very fun proper winter walk, Ben Lomand very beautiful in these conditions.