Page 46 - 2020 AMA Summer

MISCARTICLE
it that time as well. But we did, which is to say that we swam up it, literally. Breast stroke, usng the friction of head, arms, body and knees to shift away vast masses of snow in deep, flowing powder. No gear of course; you would have had to have dug down about six feet to find anything. Sigh. Maybe I should choose my routes better...
Y-Gully Right Branch. A three star Grade II. So what could go wrong? Well, quite a lot as it happens. Check out UKC; I’m not the only one. A few years ago, I reckoned that I should be able to solo anything up to Grade III with a single axe. Yes, I did. Yes, I know. Anyway, I went up into Lochain [I should have known] with a walking axe, intent on soloing this three star Grade II. Phew. Ever tried climbing apparently vertical frozen gravel with no gear, tenuous scrapings, nothing to aim for, an overhanging cornice at the top and your heart in your mouth? Obviously I survived, as I’m writing this, but for goodness sake, I should have known. This was Lochain after all.
Ever tried climbing apparently vertical frozen gravel with no gear, tenuous scrapings, nothing to aim for, an overhanging cornice at the top and your heart in your mouth?
Savage Slit. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Savage Slit; what a great climb. A three star Severe if ever there was one.
A brilliant line. But of course there had to be that one time..... I had been over to do Robin Smith’s classic Clean Sweep on Hell’s Lum with Nigel Williams, and on the way back from a brilliant day we thought that it would be a good plan to abseil down Savage Slit and climb back up, to tick two classics in one day. So we abseiled down. Now this was a while ago, before the days of UKC and stuff, where you find out all sorts of useful information, such as ; if you abseil Savage Slit, make sure that the ropes run down the left wall [looking down] or they will get stuck. Which, once we had pulled about thirty metres through, they did. Of course. So, faced with a few unpalatable options, I elected to climb back up, protected only by a two prussiks on a single rope that was jammed on....well, I didn’t know actually. Obviously [again] I survived, but when I got to the top, I found the rope jammed in a tiny crease in the rock. Lucky. So there you go; watch out if you decide to abseil down Savage Slit!
Western Slant. So this one is a IV,5, but that should be fine. So why is it that the only time I did it, we found ourselves in a deep cleft blocked by a massive chockstone, and couldn’t get out? Well at least not [in the end] without some fine Victorian technique involving Mark stepping [in crampons] on my hands, shoulder and head? I’m sure I’ve still got the scars; maybe that’s why I haven’t been back to see if we were even on route.
And then, finally, to cap it all, having over the last ahem years managed to lose not one, but two wedding rings, my Mother gave me my Father’s wedding ring, which he had managed to keep for some sixty years. A few months later I was in, well, I hardy need to say do I. And yes, it came off at some point when I was changing my gloves. It’s still out there in amongst the boulders somewhere.
So, is it just me? Or is it.... Coire an Lochain?!
46 / ARMY MOUNTAINEER