Slim Jim and Big John are old mates from ages ago and along with new apprentice mountaineer Chris came up for a visit. Jim and Chris were raising money for the Prostate Cancer Charity their plan being to make a winter ascent of Ben nevis via Coire Leis. I tagged along, as did Kat who had to turn round at the CIC hut in order to go to work.
As usual there was a lot of giggling, falling over and fart jokes as well as the inauguration of the new sport of belly-sliding.
On the way we came across what looked like an old rivetted (pre-welding) boiler, possibly from the old observatory. It was buried in snow near the stream about 300m up from the hut. In all the years I've never noticed it before.
Snow conditions were pretty reasonable, Coire Leis being fairly scoured. A very busy day on the north face with teams out on many of the classics. North East Buttress had people turning round to go elsewhere it was so busy. A couple of guys had a look at the ice routes on the Little Brenva Face but decided they were falling apart, which certainly sounded like the case when we went past.
We heard of some traffic down Number Four Gully, but equally heard from one team who climbed Comb Gully that the approach slopes were suspect and had decided to descend via Coire Leis rather than Coire na Ciste.
After summiting we descended the way we had come, down the Allt a Mhuilinn to Fort William for light refreshments, which was nice.
How-do mate, Ricey here. Excellent pics and glad to see that Slim and Big John were in good hands. Climbing Ben Nevis was the 2nd hardest thing Jamesy has done, the first was getting money out of me! T'was for a good cause though.
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