Sunday was another matter: fearsome winds, tonnes of fresh snow and a shorter day so that we could get back down to Glasgow at a reasonable hour. The team were raring to go. The mountaineering team headed in to Sneachda (the appropriately named 'coire of the snows') for dig dig digging at Dino's particular request.
The climbing team aimed for a shorter route than Saturday in the same coire, perhaps two or three pitches long. What with all the previous day's activity the shorter buttress, the Mess of Pottage, seemed to be a magnet for every climbing team that day. Rather than keeping our blinkers on we changed tack and headed for the buttress that bounds the western rim of the coire, the Fiacaill Buttress. Rather than tackling the worringly loaded apron slopes of the crag we zipped up the slopes to ridge itself and then lowered the lads in to The Seam, another benchmark grade IV route. It's a short one, but the climbing is condensed in to one long, sustained and lovely pitch. The goggles atest to the fine, Scottish conditions and we felt all the more deserving of the great climbing conditions given the other climbers that we'd met, turning back for calmer things, probably Aviemore's Mountain Cafe.
Fiacaill Buttress. Our route is clear from here, if you happen to know where it is.
Gaining the ridge.
That's James down there. Poor lad.
Ah, there he is.
Relieved to be out? Nope: happy to have climbed such a good pitch.
Tim clambering out of the murk.
Loving the Noddies.
Goggles recalibrated as muzzle.
Team happy and now addicted to winter climbing. It is that fun!
The short run home!
The climbing team aimed for a shorter route than Saturday in the same coire, perhaps two or three pitches long. What with all the previous day's activity the shorter buttress, the Mess of Pottage, seemed to be a magnet for every climbing team that day. Rather than keeping our blinkers on we changed tack and headed for the buttress that bounds the western rim of the coire, the Fiacaill Buttress. Rather than tackling the worringly loaded apron slopes of the crag we zipped up the slopes to ridge itself and then lowered the lads in to The Seam, another benchmark grade IV route. It's a short one, but the climbing is condensed in to one long, sustained and lovely pitch. The goggles atest to the fine, Scottish conditions and we felt all the more deserving of the great climbing conditions given the other climbers that we'd met, turning back for calmer things, probably Aviemore's Mountain Cafe.
Fiacaill Buttress. Our route is clear from here, if you happen to know where it is.
Gaining the ridge.
That's James down there. Poor lad. 
Ah, there he is. 
Relieved to be out? Nope: happy to have climbed such a good pitch. 
Tim clambering out of the murk. 
Loving the Noddies.
Goggles recalibrated as muzzle. 
Team happy and now addicted to winter climbing. It is that fun!
The short run home!
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