I’ve been itching to do some winter climbing for a while, especially during the recent cold snap which has produced some excellent conditions in the UK.
A couple weeks ago I made it down to North Wales where I soloed some very snowed up gullies on Y Garn, nothing too steep but I had a good day out in the hills.
This weekend I finally managed to do my first winter climb, Central Gully on Great End in the Lake District. There’s still plenty of snow and ice on high ground in the Lakes and the conditions were excellent. The climb itself was mainly well consolidated snow up to a short but steep icefall which lead onto a steeper snow finish. The top out brought us into the sunshine for the first time and some well rewarded snap just below the Great End summit.
