The Occasional Munroist - Sron na Lairig

Distance	11km
Height Ascended	850m
Time Taken	9 hours
Munros	Stob Coire Sgreamhach (1072m)

The weather has been truly appalling for the last 6 weeks, I can handle a certain amount of rain or snow and the cold doesn't tend to bother me but the whole of December was a write-off due to the incredible gales. The idea of trying to cling to the side of a mountain in the teeth of a hurricane just doesn't appeal. This means that I've not been out in the hills since November when I managed to do the grade II Sron na Creise ridge. I've been watching the weather forecast over the whole Christmas and New Year period hoping that there would be at least a couple of calm days and finally a short window (just one day!) appeared between the storms. I've had my eye on Sron na Lairig for a while now. I first caught sight of this ridge when I climbed Buachaille Etive Beag on a fine winter day last year. It's the sort of ridge which just looks so good it demands to be climbed.

We started out at about 9:30 with the weather looking good, the forecast was spot on regarding the lack of wind. The only problem was that it was really too warm, it was 3C in the car park which didn't bode well for a fully frozen route. The first few Km are along the Lairig Eilde which was just a very soggy bog, it would have been very nice if this was all frozen. The warm weather meant that everything was thawing and due to that the river was in spate. Normally the path crosses the river low down and then recrosses the river higher up but there was no way we could have waded through the deep, fast flowing cold water so we had to find our own way through the bogs and cross all the side streams individually. This worked out fairly well for us so it's slightly surprising that the normal path bothers to cross the river twice.

Having finally cleared the bog and got onto the route we rapidly discovered that the snow was too soft and the turf just wasn't frozen so the full grade II route was a non-starter. We had a few false starts where we attempted to tackle the standard route but soft snow was definitely impeding progress. The easier route is still fairly steep and provide some good entertainment so I didn't feel like we had missed out on too much. Although we had a rope and gear we kept it stowed until we reached the final section of the ridge. Just below the top of Sron na Lairig we caught up with a group of 3 who were pitching some of the more exposed sections since one of them was a novice. We free climbed past them to find ourselves presented with a perfectly formed knife-edge of snow filling in a gap in the ridge. It wasn't technically difficult but the exposure was enough to warrant getting out the rope at this point and we setup an ice-axe belay so that the traverse was protected. We felt a bit naughty for having jumped past the other group and then immediately start a pitch but thankfully we didn't hold them up too long. Having done the few nervy moves along the knife edge we followed through to do two more short pitches (we only had a 30m rope) to clear the cornice and find ourselves on the top with an amazing view across Glencoe.

Having had some lunch and got the gear stowed again we hacked our way across the plateau to the summit of Stob Coire Sgreamhach. Finally the temperature was at freezing point (well above 1000m) and the snow crunched satisfyingly under foot. At this point we had blue sky and great views right across to Ben Nevis. We finally reached the summit at about 2pm with the hope of making it back to the car before darkness.

We chose to descend to the gap between Stob Coire Sgreamhach and Beinn Fhada. This is a fairly steep route, with a well known "bad step", and should not be undertaken in winter without having the option to abseil. With the snow softening again we faced-in and front pointed down the first steep sections before reaching a point where it was clear some protection would be required. It was hard to judge how far we would have to descend but we knew that with the 30m rope it was going to take more than one abseil. The first abseil went without a hitch and we left the standard votive offering of tat for the mountain gods. We chose to go off the end of the ridge and it turned out this probably wasn't the best choice. Having started out on a second abseil I rapidly spotted that we were still a long way from the snow ramp (good job we tied those stopper knots in the ends). I then chose to go back up and switch to a protected traverse around to the side of the ridge. I was hoping to either find a shorter section to abseil or a way onto the snow ramp higher up. The traverse worked out much better and I found a lovely rock from which I could make a secure belay and a second traverse section found us on the snow ramp. All this took a lot of time and at this point it was 4pm and beginning to get dark, I think next time we will take the 60m rope so we can make longer abseils and save some faffing, the extra weight will definitely be worthwhile.

Immediately that we reached the snow ramp we discovered the worst problem of the day, the snow was very deep (waist deep) and very soft. What should have been a quick romp over the 4Km back to the car took a frustratingly long time, it took us over an hour to cover the next 1Km and get off the snow. The wallowing, continual stumbling and tripping up was tough to handle. Finally, we reached the river and regained the route we used for the walk-in. With great relief the crampons and axes went away and head-torches were donned for the final hour of bog trotting. In the dark it was very helpful to be retracing our steps as it meant there were no nasty surprises in store. We finally made it back to the car at about 6:30pm.

Although we were a couple of hours late I don't feel this was really an "epic" in any sense. It's typical of winter routes that you really don't know what you are going to get until you are out there with no choice but to continue. The deep soft snow was a surprise and once in it we just had to hack on. Other than that section of terrible snow we had an awesome day. I actually quite enjoyed the walk out in the dark, it's a good mental challenge and completely alters the experience of being in the mountains. To me this was a great winter day in the mountains which had a bit of everything - an attractive route; good views; we had to pitch a few steep, exposed sections; we had to do some awkward route finding on the way down - it was all very enjoyable. This is an excellent ridge route and definitely one I will revisit in both summer and winter.