Garadh Gully:

On Thursday we took full advantage of the perfect conditions and i headed for the Ben with Craig and Jamie. The original plan had been to run up Garadh Gully and then do Glovers Chimney but after a false start due to dropped head torch, long approach involving soloing grade II ground with 1 axe and no crampons, and thin conditions on the approach route and another team beating us to it we decided to leave Glovers for another day!

The 'approach'

Garadh Gully its self turned out to be a very enjoyable route in its own right. We moved together for the 1st pitch (avoiding the dodgey looking detached ice step at the very start) then set up a belay for pitch 2. This is supposed to have a simple grade II ice step but unfortunately there was very little ice on it so it turned out to be more of a grade III mixed step on very thinly ices rock, good fun though!

The belay above pitch 2

Craig took the lead for pitch 3 and Jamie finished it all off for us by running it out on pitch 4. Not bad going considering the guidebook has it marked as a 95m route ( we managed to run out near enough 200m of rope on it!)

Team ahead on P2 of Glovers

From here we descended back down the corrie, stopping to play on a few short ice pitches on route before walking out. Another lovely day out!

Jamie having a play!

Sorry about the photo quality! Had the camera on the wrong setting!