Scotland '15: It's Dinner Time

Dinnertime Buttress, the dip between the two 'lumps' on the left. Our
walk in took us around the right of this photo, throughthe dark patches
 at the snow line, then up the ridge

And we're into it on the first day. The avalanche and weather reports weren't looking hot - over 700m the slopes were positively lethal on North to South Eastern faces. We'd known that before we'd even left London so Charlie had plotted some decent west-facing routes that we could do even if the weather didn't improve.

Which is what led to us standing by the car at 9.30am, staring up at the west face of Aonach Dubh and trying to find our route on Dinnertime Buttress. We weren't the only ones prepping - two other teams were gearing up. We hoped they'd be looking at other routes on the face but we'd be disappointed - as you'll find out later. After taking a few photos of a glorious Scottish winter morning we set off on the walk in.


The walk in itself wasn't nearly as bad as I've experienced before - this time you could see the final route from the path, though there were a lot of false ridges which gave me and my legs-that-haven't-got-used-to-it-yet a lot of sad times as we expected easy, flat going only to see a slight dip and then more climbing. My thighs were screaming a little by the time we got to the bottom of the route. On the walk in however, I did get my first taste of what 55-75mph winds driving what Charlie refers to as 'Snail' (An evil combination of Snow and Hail) into our faces. It's not an experience I'd like to repeat any time soon, if I'm honest.

Charlie gearing up at the bottom of Dinnertime Buttress

We got to the bottom of the route by about 10.20 and geared up just as another trio of climbers (a guide and two students) set off ahead of us roped together. Initially we were going to rope together but as we discovered as we rounded the corner the terrain ahead of us was relatively easy going - essentially the same terrain that we'd just been walking up, just a little steeper. I followed Charlie's trailblazing up the buttress to the bottom of the only actual climb on the route - the rock pitch.


Unfortunately we arrived just as two other teams were ascending the route, and ended up in what
became a queue when another pair came up behind Charlie and myself. We were stuck for a good fifteen to twenty minutes as the other groups cleared the pitch. The main reason was that the other major routes over the rock band were either too exposed to the biting wind that kept blowing snail at us and driving us off our feet, or covered in windslab and unclimbable.

Charlie waiting in the queue at the bottom of the rock pitch

Eventually we got our turn on the route and I set up the belay whilst Charlie set off. Not that we needed the Belay, he didn't even place any gear. Then it was my turn after he'd built a belay at the top. It was a lovely climb - simple, accessible with good mixed sections. Then, as soon as it was started it was over, I was flaking the rope and carrying on to the top of the ridge. The final section of the climb was a short walk across a snow-laden slope to a narrow gully that led to the summit plateau. As we reached it so did another group, and as we climbed up I found myself at the back of a five-man group in a gully that was being blasted by high-speed winds, spindrift, hail and snow. Thankfully I had my goggles on but they were fogged and I was basically blind for much of the final climb, with wind seemingly howling both down and up the gully to test me and my gear. Even when we reached the summit the wind didn't abate, so after a quick break for food and drink we headed back down the descent gully. The mountains are formidable opponents.

Me soloing the last section of the rock band

The only real notable event on the descent was that we found the gully, which the guide book described as a descent route was instead filled with badly bonded windslab and ended in a sheer drop of 15 meters or more, which necessitated us swimming, then eventually climbing over a saddle and back onto the route we'd walked up. We passed a group of climbers on the way down who we'd seen in the car park and had been headed for another route - that hadn't panned out so they'd come back to attempt Dinnertime. We warned them of the conditions at the summit, wished them luck and carried on.


On the way down I paused to look back at the route and saw two climbers on the upper part of the rock pitch. As I looked I remembered a quote from Buzz Aldrin as he landed on the moon. "Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation." That's what I thought as I looked up at Aonach Dubh, it's wind-scoured, snow-plastered flanks and the tiny men on its West face. Desolate and Beautiful.

Anyway, we're back at the hotel now. It's pot noodle on the menu tonight.

I'm having curry flavour. Can't wait.


Oh, and here's an example of how bad and quick-to-change the weather was.

Same pair of climbers, seen from my belay stance on the rock pitch. There's about three minutes between photos.
Oh, and that ball of spindrift is made of little balls of icy pain.