10 in a Weekend by Treble Edit & British Backcountry

Ben Lawers offered an epic hillwalk and a lot of self doubt on my part. Poor George had left the Alps after my promise of glorious Scottish spring touring conditions. Fortunately the East face towards Lochan nan Cat saved us by offering spring corn and panoramic views over Loch Tay.

With Lawers in the bag I relaxed. Ben Nevis, next up, rarely disappoints. We arrived late at the North Face car park ready for another long walk and nocturnal river crossing. This time the packs were fully loaded for the overnight stay at the CIC hut, and a day of steep skiing which might require ropes, ice axe and crampons as well as touring kit. It could be worse, I thought to myself, at least I’m not also carrying a drone and two professional cameras like George! All hopes of a quiet night were doomed when musician JimBob McCluskey turned up with his guitar and the whiskey came out. I had optimistically left my sleeping bag in the van hoping for a warm night. It wasn’t.

Our discomforts were forgotten once on Ledge Route the following morning. This terrific grade one scramble is fun to climb, even with skis on your back. With airy views on either side and snow filled gullies revealing themselves as we ascended, I began to think we might actually achieve our goal. Tower Gully had other ideas. This was the obvious line for us (it starts at the summit of Britain’s highest peak and finishes directly below our third objective), but it hadn’t had enough sun to soften. Number 5 gully made up for it with steep corn loveliness delivering us into the exhilarating narrow section, before spitting us out on the scree for a painful descent to the valley floor. If only we had done this two weeks earlier it would have been a ski out…

The only thing worse was the climb up Carn mor Dearg. The other side of CMD was a dream however. Compared with Ben Nevis’s steep north face this is freeride country. As we waited for the drone to get in position we were chomping at the bit to let the skis run. CMD in good condition stays with you longer than the three minutes it takes to descend, and I couldn’t help grinning as we ascended the tricky path up to Aonach Beag afterwards. Descent number three took us into An Chul-Choire. A beautiful triangle of sun stretched out down this blank canvas of snow. Gavin and I chased each other full speed skiing to the edge of the shadow. George captured the moment perfectly. The downhill part of the day ended with a spray-fest in Easy Gully after a rather sporty entrance. The walk out was long enough to turn a person mad and without my pack of Drumstick Squashies I may not have made it.

Day three started all too early, after three hours of sleep at Finlay Mickel’s house in Aviemore. This was the big one: the Cairngorm 4000ers loop, skiing off five of the six highest munros, carrying way too much kit and with very little snow. It almost went to plan.

Braeriach is an outstanding mountain. We were on skis earlier than expected up the ridge from the Lairug Ghru, then made an exciting descent down the twisting narrows of Central Buttress Gully, finally got to use the axe and crampons ascending East Gully, skied around the dizzying cornice edge of Garbh Coire and arrived on top of Angel’s Peak feeling like we could do anything. We couldn’t. As I abseiled onto the Angel’s Face above Lochain Uaine a sense of unease overcame me. It was rather steep, and the cover really didn’t look that deep. I’d skied it last year and it blew me away: sustained gradient; big views; and an alpine feel. This would be the line of the trip if we made it and to capture it on film would have been momentus. I prefer to sleep comfortably at night though so hastily retreated back up our Radline with my tail between my legs.

A more lighthearted descent of Cairn Toul’s Coire an t-Sabhail returned us safely into the Lairig Ghru (literally as we had to get our feet wet). Ascending Ben Macdui was slow and methodical as the legs started to fade. Macdui should have been an easy summit for us but the clag came in making navigation down to our second last objective, Castlegate Gully, a map and compass affair. Castlegate Gully isn’t somewhere you want to hang around in with loose rock everywhere. An echoey descent brought us to the shores of Loch A’an and we took a moment to enjoy the last gasp of daylight before leaving the beach to ascend the mighty Cairngorm in the gloom.

Darkness engulfed us as we stumbled up Coire Raibeirt trying not to fall in the waterfall. I don’t remember the ascent up onto the summit, we had run out of Squashies and I went into a sort of trance. Plan A had been to finish with Jacob’s Ladder or Alladin’s Couloir but, given the Squashy situation and lack of daylight, the Coronation Wall and Coire Cas seemed wiser. Our final confusing head torch slalom around rocks and over refrozen piste basher chod didn’t really do the rest of the trip justice.