Cairn Gorm, 45 years on. Crampon use!!

[Les Deakin]

I believe I first did this mountain in the summer of 1973 with my then girlfriend Viv. We had hitch-hiked up from London with our camping gear and camped near Morlich. I have been on the summit a few times since then. As I have started collecting Munros again and am up here for the week arriving Saturday, we decided on an easy start. I was accompanied by my niece and her other half who got the 'spiky bits' bug fairly recently.
It was a pleasant morning, cold enough for fairly good snow conditions but with little wind. We decide to go up Fiacall ridge (Coire Cas) as conditions looked easy. There were already some walkers and ski mountaineers moving easily upwards. I had not planned the whole route as I usually do. My familiarity with the routes to and from the summit caused a little laziness.
We got to the top without incident and Angela asked if we could go a different way down. I needed to avoid the skiers and the car was in the top car park so my plan was to go north from the summit, stay right of Red Gully and go down to the bottom car park.
The only minor difficulty of the day was an 'old chestnut'. When do I put on crampons? When do I take them off? If I had a pound for every time I got one of these two questions wrong I would be a rich man. It is obviously about staying safe but is also about comfort and looking after your crampons!
We put them on at the bottom of the steep bit of the ridge. Kicking steps is easy if snow conditions are favourable but putting on crampons on a steep slope is not. This was not a difficult decision. Later, as we wandered down towards the bottom car park, we watched the skiers enjoying excellent snow conditions in Red Gully.
The snow was getting thinner and patchy and Angela has lightweight alloy crampons. We discussed the merits of taking them off. She had been told not to walk on rock too much... (a book on lightweight v safety could be written). My final statement was that she would almost certainly need them at some point as we crossed the snow patches. A few minutes later I was walking below her in her fall line across a couple of patches which were a bit icy. I still had crampons on. Mine are heavy, steel, very rounded (except front points) and would prevent both of us sliding...
I left the others to their own devices as we negotiated the path down to the car park. I had taken my crampons off. Crossing the car park, which was icy, I slipped and landed heavily on my left knee... A Homer moment and another pound?

[gaffr]

My own views on the retention of crampons on or off for descents are to keep them on if you feel you need them for safety....I can recall once that at the top of the descent of the goat track, in your area of movement yesterday, where a person that I was with decided to take off crampons. I did the opposite and kept mine on. After a bit the person without had a wee slip but had the skills to arrest the slide. These things happen but it can also be a problem for those using crampons in the 'sticky snow' conditions for the crampon wearer.....constant clacks with the axe can remove the balling-up effect.
As for skiers in Red Gully. The only gully with that name in the area that I have been in has a steep-ish ice pitch....not sure that skiers would be in there? but that may just an misunderstanding of the names of features in that area of the hill?
Yesterday on my bike crossing the bridge to reach the path that follows the steep edge of the bank of the Feshie heading for the upper Glen I was happy to use the gouges in the neve made by someone had made using crampons, maybe a day earlier, to drag my bike up to get on the path and make progress. Only a short steep bank but in trainers I was happy to use the gauges.