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Central Gully, Ben Lui, 21st January, 2020

Central Gully, Ben Lui, 21st January, 2020

Attendees: Craig, Catherine, Tina, Tim .
This was an impromptu day out, suggested by Craig.  Both the weather forecast and avalanche reports looked promising and as Craig had suggested an easy and highly rated gully, I was keen to tag along. We met up at Dalrigh at about 9.30 and as I remembered the long walk in on the track, I wondered why no one had suggested bringing bikes.  Apparently, so had everybody else, without voicing it.  Hmm.  We set off under blue skies, immediately bumping into the first of the competitors taking part in the Tyndrum 24 hour race.  Some were already over the 100 mile mark, having run throughout the night. As we passed Cononish we had a clear view of the snow field and gully, which seemed to be in perfect condition.
We climbed steadily up to the snow line in the corrie, with me wheezing, spluttering and coughing at the back most of the time (at least that was my excuse).  A quick break to refuel and get kitted up followed, before we climbed steadily up the snow field, taking a quick break at the start of the gully before heading up.  All this was on good hard neve, with hardly any deep soft snow.  As we moved up we could see the clouds shooting past the ridge, giving us fair warning of the chill to come.  We topped out and had a few minutes in the sunshine. We enjoyed the views and mucked about with the camera, before retreating down the north ridge out of the wind.
A second stop in the corrie allowed us to shed gear, before the long trek back to the car. This was a fun day out in good company, and in perfect conditions.