N Corries trip report 9-10th December

First trip up of the season and it didn't disappoint. Rich Cross and I arrived just before 5am after driving through the night. After a couple of hours kip we walked in to Coire an Lochain and were pleased to see how white everything looked.The view from the loch into Lochain on day two (Thursday 10th) with everything still as white.

With pretty much everything wintery enough it was more a question of which were too buried. We opted for Nocando Crack but after leading the first pitches it became obvious that the route would be a nightmare for gear as it was covered in several inches of ice. Instead we carried on up the overhanging corner of Migrant direct which proved to be superb.The line of Migrant direct (note Rich's cleaning efforts in the corner)

The following day we headed back up a little worried about the MWIS forecast which had the freezing level at 1250m. The reality was closer to the Met Office's projected 700m and if anything the cliffs were even whiter. We headed up Ventricle which turned out to be super sustained, luckily once again Rich was firing on all cylinders and did the bulk of the hard bits. I got the last pitch in the dark which had many "moments" including an off route lob when a block pulled and a particularly terrifying last move.

Rich feeling the steepness on Ventricle.
We got back to Sheffield at 4am, happy satisfied and very tired.