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Beinn Udlaidh – 28/01/12
Having not found any “proper Ice” for a climb this winter, we thought to have a look at Beinn Udlaidh in the hope that the colder temperatures may have formed some ice on this Corbett.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nRDbypHXkE&feature=plcp&context=C3a58ba4UDOEgsToPDskJblFJT5xMP0KJdtoBH2Lvz[/youtube]
We headed down Glen Orchy and everything seemed frozen so it was looking good. We left the car and headed up through the plantation on a steep and icy land rover track which took us in to the corrie. As we gained height we reached the snow line which is usually good news. On this occasion though the snow was wet and the ground underneath was soggy. The inversion had given us false hope as it was milder up here than down in the valley
Anyway we thought we would have a look at some routes closer up to make sure. We headed up to look at west gully but there was nothing on. Then headed round to Sunshine gully which looked more promising but when we got into it the ice was too thin to climb. Finally we zig zagged round to the middle of central gully where we though we may get some ice higher up, however it was not to be so we headed up the top section of the gully an onto the summit. The cloud level was high enough that we got some nice views.
We then descended down the northern shoulder before heading back to the lip of the corrie and down again. It was a nice wee walk and although no winter routes were done it was an enjoyable day and home earlier to collect some brownie points for next week trip to Salamander
