Milehouse Cottage Kincraig

Milehouse, LSCC Hut, KIncraig - Meet report

Attendees: Andy Stratford (Meet Leader), Andy Pierce, Gareth Williams, Craig Marsden, Stevie Graham, Yvonne King, Harry Potts, Claire Hawkins, Will Fitzmaurice, Tom Arthur, Tommy Harrisson, Jake Fletcher.

Winter Skills Training Course: Tom Arthur, Tommy Harrisson, Jake Fletcher.

Staying on for a few days: Andy Stratford, Andy Pierce,

Jake arrived a couple of days early with Innominata MC and had a couple of good but challenging days in the Northern Corries, including a climb of Jacobs Edge (I/II) on Mess of Pottage. He managed to leave his sleeping bag in his mate’s van, so Andy S’s spare had its first use.

The LSCC hut at Kincraig, just past Insh Watersports centre, is a great spot with an Alpine bunk room similar in size to the downstairs left at Ty Powdwr and sleeping 12 on two expansive shelves with toilets, showers, a small well-equipped kitchen and a decent lounge with a lovely hot multifuel stove. There is another LSCC members-only room for five. The only surprise was the speed at which the electric meter chewed through the coins we fed it – we lost track of exactly what went in it, but it must have been £80 for the weekend – but that’s not bad between 12 people.

Friday was a decent enough looking forecast for Scotland, and a perfect day for Harry, Yvonne, Claire and Will to have a day out on Fiacall Ridge (II) followed by a walk round to Cairngorm summit. Craig and Andy Pierce teamed up and headed in to Sneachda to take a look at what looked in – a lot of snow had fallen and was blowing about and so onto Fluted Buttress Direct (IV,5) they found PLENTY of powder – lots of digging for gear was the order of the day – along with the realisation that they had two rather mismatched ropes…. Andy was convinced his was a 60 and therefore Craig's much larger pile must be a 70…. (why they didn’t realise this earlier shall remain a mystery!). It turned out Craig's was a 60 and Andys was only a 45…. Discovered when one of them ran out of rope on a pitch!

The three trainees had a grand day out with Instructor Jonty Mills – Navigating, getting to grips with axes, crampons, organisation, weather and snow types and slope assessment.

Andy S only needed the sliver of a suggestion from Gareth to make a beeline for the famous ‘Cold Climb’ of Savage Slit (V,6) in Coire an Lochan. The SAIS reports showed that the Great Slab had been cleared by a massive full-depth avalanche a few days earlier, making the approach safer. In the Coire, two climbers looked like they were at the start of the route, but as Andy and Gareth got closer, it turned out they were on Fallout Corner (VI,6) adjacent. We were on! A clear run at it, No Queue. It looked Icy. Andy led up a first short pitch of 15m to below the main slit, Gareth took the lead -it looked desperate…after a lot of thrutching and grunting, Gareth disappeared into a huge slot cave at the bottom of the main slit. 45 minutes later, Andy S followed up – it was hard, but felt a little easier with a rope above. Once at the chockstone, Gareth was grinning….. ‘’I think my illness last week has taken more out of me than I thought….. I’m spent – if we are carrying on, you’ll need to lead.’’ I looked up at the intimidating icy offwidth crack, every surface coated with unhelpful verglas…and up into intimidating chockstones creating overhangs….. A couple of hours later, and we were at the top belay. Gareth is writing a longer article so there may be more about the climb in his writing!

There was lots of wind creating snow redeposition on Friday in all areas of the Northern Corries, so we had good beta on the next day.

Saturday

The forecast for Saturday was warmer, still windy – raining and with the overnight winds even more snow would have been moved about. None of us thought that  Sneachda was a good bet, partly due to conditions – mostly snow and cornice stability and how busy it might be. We were proved right – that day a cornice collapsed when a team climbing Aladdin’s Mirror direct were finishing the route, causing the pair to take a long and serious fall with injuries that required evac by Heli for one of them.

Craig jumped on the early train home to attend to some family stuff, dropped off by the three training team members who, provided with shovels by guide Jonty went into some lower and safer reaches of the corries to practice some key snowcraft anchors, including T axe belays and bucket seats. Back at the hut that evening, accompanied by much laughter they recounted the day:

Jake: ‘I loved my Shovel, loved digging, made my bucket seat as deep as possible – I was at a mad angle with my ankles in the air. Tom and Tommy were next to me, then I asked if they wanted to see if we could make our holes touch….’

Tommy: ‘We Sang Chitty Chitty Bang Bang quite a lot’

 Andy P, Andy S and Stevie opted for a return to Coire an Lochan, with the idea to look at the buttresses right of The Vent – Andy S’s experience in the Corrie the day before convinced him of a safe route in despite the snow – but first we had to battle a blustery wind with occasional horizontal rain in our faces for an hour and a half….at about 850m this turned to sleet then quickly snow, although it was hard to know what was falling and what was windblown. It being a Saturday the Corrie was busy with teams heading up to routes all over the place – we saw three lads head up to The Vent, which we thought was an odd choice given the amount of snow blowing about. Our first choices of routes, Milky Way and Ewan Buttress both about III,4 were occupied – the climber on Milky Way was climbing at a snail’s pace, having been visible on the route for the last part of our walk-in and having only got 10m up the route in the best part of an hour! We all felt sorry for the belayer! At the base of Ventilator (III) it was clear that every feature on the rock had been obliterated by a thick layer of unconsolidated powder. We tried a few pick placements in the various start options, but our axes pulled through the powder to rock. Seconds later, a snow slide from the slabs above dumped a few wheelbarrows' worth of snow over us and our carefully excavated standing ledge. We then heard shouting down away to our left… two of the three lads who had been in The Vent were dusting themselves off, having been flushed out in a powder avalanche!

We all looked at each other, packed up and headed out!

Gareth, Harry, Yvonne, Claire and Will drove forty-five minutes or so down past Laggan to park at the Roughburn track for the excellent East Ridge of Beinn a’ Chaorainn (I/II) It was in super condition, and a great day out was had with some sunshine to boot!

Sunday

Given the avalanche events of the previous day Andy S decided that a Munro day was in order, recruited Will, and settled on a longish (25km, 1000m) but easy walk up Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair (1019m) followed by a visit to what must be the best kept (and equipped) Bothy in Scotland on the Glen Feshie estate at Ruigh Aiteachain where, over lunch and a brew we met the in situ warden Lindsay. Two downstairs rooms, each with a fire and kitchen area, lots of free firewood provided by the estate, great furniture and two toilets in a building 30 yards away – certainly not your average bothy!

Glen Feshie itself is an absolute delight – deer have been kept out for about twenty years now, and the regeneration of the native trees and other flora has been utterly remarkable – it’s a truly stunning environment even in the depths of winter.

Andy Pierce and Stevie opted for the east-facing Crag of Creagan Cha-No, betting that with the south-easterly wind, the crag was less likely to have the windslab build up that we had seen in the Corries the previous day.  They had a cracking day in good weather, albeit a little windy and managed two of the classic routes on the crag – Jenga Buttress III,4 and Anvil Gully IV,4.

Gareth and Claire headed off back to Manchester, climbing Gairbeinn (Corbett) on the way home. Yvonne and Harry had a heavy day of several cafes en route back to Manchester.

The three training team members had another cracking day out with Instructor Jonty Mills.

Monday

Andy S and Andy P – day off to work or rest – sadly, this was one of the best days of weather of the whole week, but with pre-arranged work meetings, Andy S had no choice but to knuckle down in Aviemore Library and visits to Costa and Tiso! However, in the evening we had a treat – The Aurora Borealis came to Aviemore!

Tuesday

A rise in temps overnight with strong winds and rain forecast for the day and freezing levels rising to 1100m didn’t give us a great deal of confidence – but Andy P looked hard for a possible route and we settled on Original Summer Route IV,5 which was described as ‘’often sheltered, climbable under powder, and possible to abseil off into Aladdin’s Couloir at the top’’ – this was great as it meant not having to top out on the plateau in the strong winds. The well-trodden paths had iced overnight and were like glass right from the car park, so we donned spikes from the get-go to avoid falling over – they proved themselves essential. We faced into the wind and heavy rain and marched in, not really thinking we were going to be doing much. As we arrived in the Coire at 900m, the snowpack was totally saturated and melting out, but very stable – no powder blowing about at all and miraculously the rain stopped…. We geared up, and I opted to take the first pitch – there was just enough soaking wet snow on the rock, and it was just still glued on….most of the placements needed excavating and a got 2 decent pieces in before a tenuous move on front points enabled a rockover using one good axe. Once established, the next moves up were harder but just a few metres to where I imagined some better deeper wet snow might enable better pick placements rather than just having them tenuously balanced on not much at all….. before I knew it, I was at the good spike runner and possible belay but stopping didn’t seem to be required, I pushed on up easier grade III ground, one more runner in 30m before a fixed belay at 55m of rope length. I was completely out of the wind! Andy P came up, and we swapped over – he got a cracking second pitch – only 25m in length, but it packed a lot in, including a super traverse on a narrow ledge. Our abseil point was the next bela,y and 30m brought us back down into Aladdin’s, then a very careful descent on the edge back to the crag apron and the way we had come up.  We were very pleased and headed back in drier conditions. That evening we plotted a long drive to the North West in search of a weather window…..

Wednesday

Three of us set off for Glen Carron at 7 am – Julian Duxfield (FRCC / CC / AC) was at the hut, and after some good chats, we invited him along. This was a strictly soloing mission – we only took a helmet and a couple of axes each – no ropes or gear. Our target was a combination of grade I and II mountaineering routes on one of the major NW climbing crags – Sgorr Ruadh (Munro, 926m), which lies adjacent to another major climbing venue, Fuar Tholl in Glen Carron. The estate stalkers' path (also part of the Cape Wrath trail) is in excellent condition, and I’d done a recce previously as part of my Munro round when climbing Beinn Liath Mhor in Feb 2024, and with the rise in temps reckoned the track would be a quick and easy stomp. And so it was, we left the car 9 am-ish and were soon heading to solo up a very bare Academy Ridge (Mod/Diff) – this led to a sneaky ramp which descended a few metres to bring us in above the massive bottom chockstone which gives Post Box Gully (II) its name. The gully was lean and melty, and the three further chockstone pitches required great care with a single axe, some hands-on rock action and careful and thoughtful foot placements. With no ropes or gear, there could be no errors, and we reckoned it was a bit harder than II in these conditions. The confined gully was never wider than your average living room and sometimes much narrower, and after an absorbing 45 minutes, we emerged at about 800m and made our way across to the top of the descent gully, Central Couloir, a *** star Grade I. The cloud had lifted to about 850m, and we had excellent views and even some sunshine; in fact, we didn’t see a drop of rain all day, and there was little wind to speak of either.

I persuaded Andy and Julian to come with me up the Munro – we headed up into the clag and 10 minutes later reached a cairn. ‘’That was quick’’ I said. We descended back to the couloir and all of a sudden the clag lifted – we turned round, and we hadn’t actually been to the summit! I set off again with the two grumbling behind me…. If Andy P had kept quiet, I might not have noticed till I got all the way back to the car and checked my GPX track! Back at the Couloir once more, we descended – it was fantastic with some great opportunities to see some other climbable lines on a quiet crag and a great bum slide lower down.

We arrived back in Aviemore about 6.30 pm, having had a great day out when Cairngorm conditions were appalling – the ski centre had been shut all day due to the high winds.

The following day, the Karn house meet started, so check out Steve Graham's meet report for that once it's published.

Thanks to everyone for coming and making Milehouse a great meet.

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Stratford