Crypt route

“Out of the darkness into light”A bit like life.

My mate and I had decided to climb Crypt route in Glencoe it is high up on Bidian Nam Bian. We had been putting it off. It’s a classic climb with a deep tunnel that goes into the heart of the mountain. It was a lovely day when my mate Chalky from Glencoe went to climb it. It’s a steep pull up to the climb usually wet as it’s a draining line.and to me it looked intimidating. The initial pitch takes you to ledge and from here into the bowels of the mountain. It’s thrusting and tight more like pot holing at times. It’s hard to communicate with your partner. My call,for a tight rope went unheeded then as it got tighter my gear got stuck. I took some off and dropped some into the dark slot.,it seemed to drop for a while joining the lots of gear dropped by many others through the years. When I had to take my harness off to get through and just tie in as a bowline.When I got up to Chalkie he was laughing so much in the end so,was I.

Then you come out into the sun. It’s incredible you are high up on climb and the views are wild. We had done many call-outs in this area but never seen Glencoe looking so wild.: The final pitch took us to the summit the views were even better there was grand views of Loch Etive. We had a sleep on the summit and then descended.How lucky we were we hardly spoke and were left to our thoughts:We stopped at Hamishs house on the way back and he also laughed at us,

Next day we went to Glen Etive to the Etive slabsv what a joy and climbed the sun kissed granite. Two amazing days in a special place.