Big day Tuesdays were now firmly a thing as it seemed this was when timetables and weather aligned. The avalanche hazard was considerable again so we opted for a ridge line (ridges are bridges) and had our eyes on another classic, North Buttress on the Buachaille. We got to the car park and were slightly disappointed by the lack of snow cover. We had a look and decided it was worth a go, and knowing the route from the summer knew we could back off if, when we got closer we decided it wasn’t a goer.
The initial approach slopes are fairly exposed but with care were easy enough. There was a layer of verglas covering most of the rock making this exposed bit slightly more focussing. We got to the base of the main crux, the chimney which splits the buttress, and geared up.
There was no wind and great views as we made our way up the route, the snow was in great condition as was the turf, we even found some nice ice in the upper sections. We did the main chimney in 3 long pitches, the 3rd being the crux with a steep step at the back onto an awkward slab. We pitched 2 more sections above before we took the rope off and soloed to the summit.
The sun was setting as we sorted gear, we had discussed on the way up that we were sceptical with the snow conditions in Coire na Tulaich, given the avalanche forecast and the weather we had been having recently so opted for the “winter descent” which takes the ridge line on the West of the Coire before rejoining the main path at the base of the mountain.
Not having done this decent for a while we wanted to be able to see as much of it as we walked down as possible as we knew there are a few steeper sections to avoid. That being so we hot footed it down and onto the ridge, making good time and only needing to put torches on as we rejoined the main path and took our crampons off. You can abseil North Buttress but we decided with the verglas only going to be worse and us making good time on the route we would have a better time completing the route in its entirety and taking the longer (in distance) walking decent.
We returned back to the cars in full dark, another classic route completed!
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