Scotland: “A Touch Breezy”

After climbing The Hurt Lochan on Monday in some pretty gnarly weather, Tuesday’s climb of Gearr Aonach via Zig Zags Direct was pleasantly mild. Gusts only up to 50mph/80kph and no precipitation! As I was topping out on the route I’m thinking to myself, “hey, self, this isn’t so bad!”

Which, of course, is exactly what the soon-to-be-dead, red-shirted character thinks as he walks down the dark corridor. On literally the last move of Zig Zags I rammed my knee into something very hard - rock, ice, the frozen souls of those who came before me, who knows. So Wednesday ended up being a rest day while my very swollen knee decided just how sad it was.

Come Thursday the knee was quite unhappy but perfectly functional, which was more than could be said for the weather, which was both unhappy and in no way functional. Fortunately, the National Ice Climbing Center was just down the road, because nothing says Scottish like deciding it’s too wet and cold to go outside so let’s hang out all day where it’s wet and cold inside! The Center is home to what are reported to be the largest indoor ice walls in the world, topping out at 12 meters in a wide variety of difficulties. The picture below is me feeling pretty good about a route shortly before some combination of a hold and my forearms blew out quite dramatically.

On Friday the forecast was weirdly favorable. Cool temperatures, mild wind, minimal precipitation! “Hey, not so bad!,” our red-shirted protagonist thinks to himself as he holsters his phaser. The approach to the West Buttress of Aonach Mor’s West Buttress starts, pleasantly enough, in a gondola! There’s a small, sort of sad ski park on Aonach Mor, and even when the winds are too strong to safely cart up skiers it’s apparently safe enough to haul climbers (!!???!!). As we stepped out of the gondola station we got the first taste that the forecast might have been a tad optimistic.

The winds were absolutely howling, which in turn had pushed all the water on the mountain into these crazy, deep piles of powder that were frozen solid into a crust on the top. As we descend (!!) from the gondola station into an adjacent valley and my tears start to freeze in my eyelashes I begin to realize which character I am in this story.

My guide had described this approach as “a healthy walk in.” There was nothing healthy about it. In fact, 9 out of 10 doctors would tell you that doing anything in these conditions, let alone ascending hundreds of vertical meters with a pack, is decidedly unhealthy. The 10th doctor is frozen in a block of ice on the hill and couldn’t be reached for comment.

Actually climbing the West Buttress was difficult and cold and wet and absolutely amazing. Seven pitches of rocky climbing along what was a sometimes disconcertingly knife-edge ridge. The guide referred to the significantly exposed sections as “atmospheric climbing.” I love the Scottish.

When we finally topped out, we emerged from the sort-of shelter of the buttress itself onto one of the moons of Jupiter. The picture at the top of this post shows our red-shirted protagonist leaning into 75mph/120kph winds while his guide says, straight-faced, “it’s a touch breezy today.” A very good day out in the hills.

Now back in Istanbul for a bit, where I found this here doggo and gave her some proper scritches.