With blue skies and wall to wall sunshine we headed up in to Glencoe for the first time this week. The Aonach Eagach looked pretty special from the road and we saw plenty of teams heading that way. Our choice of route was the Zig Zags on Gearr Aonach. We looked at different rope techniques for moving across a variety of ground. The route was well iced and proved a good challenge for most of the group. Lunch on the summit was a very relaxed affair with no wind and stunning views.
A band of cloud came in from the west around midday but we were still comfortable in just a thermal and a soft shell. After a brisk walk along the ridge the group made a multi pitch abseil off snow bollards down a steep gully to the lower reaches of Coire Nan Lochan. The deep powder is still very light and we found a few small patches of soft slab but trail breaking is surprisingly easy. Looking up into the coire we could see teams on SC Gully and Dorsal Arete. Today I was working for Adventure Peaks.
