The Forcan Ridge of The Saddle and Beinn Udlaidh
There haven't been many good weather weekends this winter, so when the forecast for the 1st weekend in March referred to 70% chance of cloud-free Munros in the Northwest, a long drive beckoned... The Scottish hills are plastered with huge amounts of snow at the moment, so Tim and I aimed for a classic ridge traverse on the Saturday, hoping to avoid too much wading (and potential avalanches)! The Forcan Ridge on the Saddle (in Glen Shiel) turned out to be a great choice.
We soloed most of the ridge, but moved together on the rope for a short section of steeper mixed ground, and some alpine-style sections of corniced snow arete.
There was then a short steep descent, where someone had handily left a rope in place (well frozen by now) which we used as an abseil anchor.
We then had a hearty dinner at the Clachaig (they do a very good venison casserole...) and drove back to Crianlarich youth hostel for some well-earned sleep. Sunday's weather forecast promised a short window of good weather late morning / early afternoon, so we thought a short day nearby was a good idea. We didn't hold out much hope of good climbing conditions due to the sheer amount of snow, and the fact it wasn't that cold (freezing level around 600m), but we thought we'd at least go and look at Beinn Udlaidh to recce it for future trips, as it has some quality climbs and neither of us had been there before. We contemplated a couple of low grade routes that didn't require any ice build-up, but as we waded up towards the cliff in waist-deep snow, we almost gave up and walked down, before finally deciding to climb up some grade 1 ground to the left of the main cliff. We'd left crampons off as the snow was fairly soft lower down, so I had some fun kicking & cutting steps (like in the old days!) on the final wind-scoured slope to the summit plateau.
Buried!
