Curved Ridge

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This must be the most climbed route on the Buchaille, as it's within the reach of a competent scrambler and is also a splendid route in it's own right offering a grandstand view of Rannoch Wall.

I can't now remember what motivated me the first time I climbed it, but I parked at Lagangarbh and took the then fairly new path which gently rises round the mountain to the Waterslide.  There were plenty of people out and my route-finding was very simple: follow the crowds!  The route also turned out to be well-marked on the rock.  The scrambling was very enjoyable being hard enough (to me) to have to think about but not involving any real fear or worries.  Being on my own I made good progress and was soon on Crowberry Tower and then the summit, taking in the views.

Since then I have climbed this route several more times, including an ascent in winter conditions.  On that occasion I was part of a rope of four.  We were moving slowly as the original aim was to pitch a lot of the route.  When it came to my turn to lead the rope had frozen which lead to a horribly exciting moment as I climbed a short ledge well above my last runner.  Just as I moved onto the ledge (which had a fair drop into Crowberry Gully) the rope pulled up short.  Fortunately the guide was on hand to help me pull up enough rope to get into a safe place.  Presumably the fact the rope was frozen was the cause of the problem by preventing my belayer from feeling what was happening, as we hadn't actually run out of rope.  Shortly after it became clear that we were moving too slowly for the amount of daylight left.  We started moving together and eventually reached the foot of Crowberry Tower.  There was no question of ascending it - we skirted it's foot to the left and headed up a snow slope to the summit.  There were plenty of existing foot holes in the snow - but they were made by someone with much longer legs than I have so it was very hard work for me taking such large steps.  We topped out at nearly 6pm and had a short break for some food and drink.  By the time we were back at the car it was nearly dark.  However, it was a fantastic day out though I don't ever want a repeat of the rope problem!

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