Page 10 - 1996 AMA Spring

for an early start on Sunday 4th February. We left the Maze at 0630 to be first in the queue on our route. On setting off from Newcastle RUC station at 0745 it was still dark and very cold. The sky was clear and soon gave way to the rising sun and thefirst glimpse of blue sky we had seen in weeks. As we approached the climb, it became noticeably warmer. I started to wonder what, if any, condi­ tions the route would be in. As we came out of the Donard forest we caught a glimpse of our route. We saw that the top pitch looked quite iced up, but the bottom pitch looked a bit thin!
Excitedly we stood below the bottom pitch of the fall, it looked thin but the temperature was rising and the ice starting to melt. A snap decision was needed “to climb or not to climb”, easy decision! Two minutes later we were stood geared up ready to go I lead off up the first pitch, on thin water ice - so thin in places I’m sure it was rock! I came to a large chock stone that I passed on the left. With much grunting and groaning, I carried on upwards towards the top of the first pitch. I pulled over onto a large platform that was the top of the first pitch, the platform resembled a small duck pond! Walking across it I fell through a crust ofice into knee-deep
water! It was then I realised how much warmer it was. As I set up my belay, I noticed the centre section of the top pitch had a small trickle of water coming down it! I shouted down to Andy that we should get a move on. Andy arrived at the stance slightly wet!
The small trickle on the top pitch had turned into a small running stream! 30 metres up a melting ice fall we decided speed was of the essence. We unroped and completed the last 15 to 20 metres solo! As the angle eased, we broke off to one side of the frozen stream to safety.After a hot cup of tea we descended. W alking out, we met another party who were contemplating the climb. After giving them our account of the route they decided their heart wasn’t in it and descended with us. A few hours later we were back at the Maze contemplating our next “MAD IDEA”.
No matter how poor the conditions were we had a really good day out.
8
ARM\ MOUNTAINEER
ice climbing in Northern Ireland
by Many Wells
It was the beginning of February 1996.
Andy Longman and I were three months into a 6 month tour of Northern Ireland. The cold weather we had at the
time had us thinking” how can we get
over to Scotland for one weekend”. Due
to work commitments it soon became obvious that there was no way over
there at all. So I started to have a few “
MAD IDEAS” as I call them! One idea involved trickling a fire hose down the
side of the MT hangar to form a large
ice smear. However a few people advised
me it wasn’t such a good idea! So I went
in search of another. Just as I was about
to give up, I stumbled upon an old
clim bing guide of the M ourne ^ Mountains. The last two pages of the
guide had a few winter climbs listed, One that stood out read Thomas Mountain “ Black Stairs” 50 metre grade three good two pitch route follow­ ing deep cleft.
The route is actually a water fall in sum- $ mer, and it’s low elevation (350 metres) H means it rarely comes into good condi- $ tion. However the last week had been ? very cold and 1 expected it would be “worth a look” even if it was out of con­ dition. That evening I waited for the g BBC weathergirl to give me a reliable | forecast! For once my luck was in they predicted another sub-zero night.That night Andy and I prepared our kit ready
‘j |
m.
Jn
The Author approaching the top ot the second pitch.