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Great walk, Hard Walk so worth the effort.
Walked up past the CiC hut. Pleasant walk not too steep. Rain so far. Couldn't cross the Alt there. Too much melt water. Intended to climb out of the Corie past the buff and around to the right up to the Cairn No way up there this day Dangerous damp snow all the way up. Rain now turned to sleet. So I turned left and dragged my knackered old hulk some 200m, straight up on to the Arete. Sleet now turned to snow and then stopped, thank goodness, as I reached the cloud base. Don't recommend you try it. just gets steeper and steeper on lose crumbling wet rock. Don't remember much of the walk across the Arete or up the back of the Ben other than it was a slog and visibility was around 20-30 m. I went the wrong way from the last pole. Followed some cairns to the right for about 40m then thought this is not right, so returned to my original bearing, total white out, straight past the summit. Happily spotted the drop, which I was expecting to be there. then turned left, before I plummeted 1500 ft. The summit was only about 60-70 m away. Take care up there. So after a challenging walk up and a peaceful 30 mins eating my lunch sheltered in the old weather station. I headed off down. Visibility improving by the step. Cloud base had risen and was now only 100m or so below the summit. So I headed over to the right of the path a took a few photos of CMD. First time I had seen it all day. Then it was off down the Zig Zags, a spot of fun rock hopping across the Alt and 11.5 hours after setting out I was back at the car, tired but so much richer for the experience of climbing Britain's highest peak via the CMD Arete. Next time I just hope it's sunny.
