The Gathering

24th February 2023, Coire an Lochain

Warning: what follows is just a move-by-move account of an awesome route, but it was an intense experience for me, and probably the hardest winter pitch I’ve done or will ever do! I owe Will a lot for encouraging Rob and I to get on something like this, as it isn’t really a route I ever considered until recently. It was the start of a pretty special run of big routes with Rob over the following couple of weeks.

After 10 metres of stepped easy angled ground, the pillar burst outwards from the crag. The first problem was a huge flake feature with an offwidth on the left or a corner on the right. I donned blinkers and ploughed into the offwidth crack, using gear and hooks in thin cracks on the left wall while getting foot and knee jams behind the flake. I hit an impasse level with the top of the flake, where all sane hooks ran out. After an age of prevaricating and going up and down, in a seriously steep position, I was left with the only option of aggressively spanning out right onto the overhanging front face of the flake, and awkwardly hooking over the back of it. I arrived on the top feeling worryingly pumped given the further 15 metres of overhanging ground above, but could at least sit down with one leg jammed behind the flake. The following sequence of moves is still seared into my memory a month on! Bridging out on good hooks, I followed a left trending crack for a couple of moves, and arranged a high runner. The path into the next crack system is via a featureless overhanging sheet of rock, but by the grace of god a positive flat edge is cut right into the middle. Heart in mouth, I matched both axes onto the hold and went right again to gain the bottom of a crack system; the hooks were all positive but gravity is pulling way outwards, so despite ample footholds you can’t avoid pulling hard on the axes for the entire time. Around this time I looked down to Rob, and as I shouted “I’m seriously pumped!” he managed to snap this one picture of the pitch:

I could feel a strange sort of deep weariness building in my arms at this point, as I had probably spent at least an hour and a half already on the lead. When another few metres higher, the groove system which I thought might offer a rest turned out not to, alarm bells started ringing. I was shaking out manically, but the terminal pump was coming! I shoved in a terrier a little way below the capping roof and decided that it was time to fly or die (so to speak, the route was extremely safe!). With my arms wilting, I contrived a big lock off with both feet level with my waist under the roof. All my usual testing and scraping of hooks was out the window, I just dragged the axe down the crack until it caught on something and immediately committed to the match in order to alternate shaking out my arms. At this point, desperate to take some weight off, I levered inwards too hard on my high left foot, which pinged off and precipitated a huge barn door. It was almost the end, as I was left hanging one-handed from the axe over the roof, but I got back on and milked a bit of recovery from a sneaky hand jam under the roof. A black tricam provided enough motivation to establish both feet above the roof and grovel into the back of a tiny alcove, finally off the axes! 

Belaying on a wild perch on the crest of the pillar, I was willing Rob on with everything I had as he figured out a poky offwidth sequence. This took some time, and since we weren’t really sure what the next pitch had in store it felt far from in the bag. But after he disappeared around a corner, the rope just steadily ran out. Hearing the shout of “safe” was amazing, and I just about managed to drag myself up to the top of the buttress.

It was a wild and stormy day, with rime building faster than I’ve ever seen before, and our lack of photos reflects that a bit. It’s a great feeling to break your own mental barriers about what you can do, as well as finding something which tests your own best attributes to the limit (in my case, hanging around on steep positive ground). I had a similar feeling after leading the seam something like 10 years earlier, and then central grooves and darth vader slightly more recently. This time was better though, as I think Rob and I were both pushing our level up together on a series of routes and the confidence in that sort of situation is infectious.