Thompson's Route

Douglas Boulder, NW Face. Secondary Tower Ridge area. Italian Climb area. I only saw climbers on West Gully.

The Comb and Number 3 Gully Buttress. I saw a team of 3 disappear round the corner to perhaps Number 2 gully, or something on Comb Gully Buttress

Today I was climbing with Lena. After a delayed start onto the hill, we finally made it up into Coire na Ciste. The wind was occasionally gusting hard, and we had second thoughts about carrying on to our climb at the gear up. We were heading for Thompson's Route (IV,4 ***), with the option to abseil off at the end of the IV section. After putting on lots of warm jackets we decided to go on.

Lena on the lower section on Thompson's Route

The snow was sometimes a firm neve, but sometimes a thin icy crust over poor sugar snow - which pulled easily. There was a little ice too - and we placed a couple of screws in shallow ice. Basically the route was in excellent condition.

The crux had enough good neve to make it straight forward.

Lena exiting the narrows of the chimney

The second team arrive at the belay

A team bailed off Gargoyle Wall, and ended up following us up Thompson's. They joined us at the spike belay.

Lena takes over the lead to finish the route

We decided to finish the route to the top, because thankfully the wind didn't seem to be living up to forecast speeds. Lena took the lead and took us to the whiteout waiting for us. So on the summit we were lucky not to have the gale force winds, but could only see about 40m through the mist. During the climb I heard a crack and dull thunder come from somewhere on Creag Coire na Ciste - concluding it was a piece of a cornice collapsing - we were obviously going to walking down the mountain track to the car park - I wanted to keep a healthy distance from the cornices on number 4 and 3 gullies.