Eastern Slant (SCNL)

 Face of concentration! Rob on Eastern Slant (III 4)

This week I'm working on an Introduction to Winter Climbing course for Adventure Peaks. Rob and Barry were up for pushing their limits and have plenty of general mountaineering experience so we jumped straight on to Eastern Slant (III 4) on the east face of Aonach Dubh. With gusts of 90mph forecast for the summits this proved to be a good option topping out on to the floor of the coire. The snow was pretty unhelpful but the route provided a good introduction to hooking, torqing and general mixed shenanigans.
There's a lot of wet snow in Coire Nan Lochan at the moment and we post holed back down through thigh deep drifts. The main crags were looking very wintery but the approach apron was a wee bit spooky. We saw teams heading for Dorsal Arete, Spectra and even NC Gully!!! - the latter not to be recommended with the current high avalanche risk!

Eastern Slant (III 4) takes the obvious corner to half height before a rising traverse left