Fuar Tholl (Access Gully) (10.02.2013)
Geschrieben von hmsv1 (Hannah Vickers)
| Startpunkt | Achnashellach |
|---|---|
| Endpunkt | Achnashellach |
| Tourcharakter | Hochtour |
| Karte |
|
| Besteigungen | Fuar Tholl (907m) | 10.02.2013 |
|---|
Today’s objective (today being the first day of a 5-day winter climbing course) was an ascent of Fuar Tholl via Access Gully. Fuar Tholl is one of the mountains more local to Strathcarron, where we were staying and only about 5 minutes drive down the road. On the course with me were 2 other guys, Ryan and Alex and our instructor Ken who I will best remember as being cheerful and enthusiastic with a natural walking pace which seemed to match his enthusiasm for instructing. We had what was deemed to be a ‘late’ start by leaving the lodge at 8.00. If that was supposed to be late, I expected the rest of the week to be a struggle……. Nevertheless, everyone managed to be ready with the kit sorted out on time, and we were soon heading swiftly up the lower south-eastern slopes of the mountain from Achnashellach, gaining the metres in height in a relativel short space of time.
We already felt very fortunate since there was no sign of rain or any other precipitation on it’s way, and with a dose of sunlight too it was a complete contrast to my last experience here a year before when we had not seen anything because of mountain fog. The snowline was high; I don’t think we set foot on a patch of snow until well above 500m when we had reached the coire which was nestled on the east side of the mountain. But the snow which was there was in good condition – hard and easy to walk efficiently over, just as we’d want it to be for safe and easy progress to the bottom of the gully we were intending to ascend. Part-way up to the foot of the gully, Ken introduced/refreshed our knowledge on the importance of evaluating the snow pack with respect to whether it was unstable and prone to avalanching or not. We took a look at, and discussed the different ways of assessing the layers and testing their stability, before we also revised a bit about different snow belays.
Even though the temperature was comparatively mild in relation to Tromsø, the lack of physical activity during that short(ish) session cooled me down rather quickly and I eventually resorted to putting on my lightweight down jacket to stay cosy. Fortunately we started to move upwards again to reach the start of the gully and set up a belay at a nice sheltered spot on the right hand edge. Access Gully is graded II overall, but has 2 different options for the last of the 3 pitches. The right-hand finish gives some grade III moves, and we took this option since we all had some climbing experience already. The first 2 pitches were admittedly pretty dull to be regarded as a climb and would probably be better described as a steepish hike rather than a climb, but we used this easy ground to give us some practice in leading skills – i.e. looking for places to place protection.
The final pitch with the right-hand finish gave a little more flavor to the day, with some comfortable climbing on excellent quality nevé. Unfortunately those moves only lasted for a short distance before we had to clamber up some unconsolidated snow to finish off the upper part of the gully. At this point it was not the most comfortable place to be, with much wind blowing snow up the gully from beneath and around me. At one point it was a challenge to keep my eyes open (googles would have been useful if I’d known it was going to be like that) with so much spindrift being thrashed into my face. I probably finished off the route with my eyes closed! Surprisingly, when I reached the flat and open space on the top of the route – expecting there to be even more wind, there was in fact not a breath of wind at all. Ken belayed Ryan and Alex while I took a couple of photos, then the four of us wandered over to the summit cairn, had an obligatory photo and then descended down the alpine-like east ridge and then followed the same slopes back towards Achnashellach.
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