Abbing into great end

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 dunnyg 12 Mar 2018

I was up great end on friday on window gully. There were a couple of teams ahead which was unsurprising given the awesome conditions. We got to the belay below the icefall (the lower one) and saw a team climbing out up the lower icefall. A while later a team started abseiling in down the lower icefall and they ended up kicking loads of ice down the gully. The gully was pretty busy with at least one team behind us and a couple of people soloing off to the right up to the icefall.

Personally I thought this was pretty crappy from the abseiling team, it's fair enough if you are retreating but if you just want to do the top pitch variation and are kicking ice down and throwing ropes blindly into a gully with a minimum of two other teams in it who may wish to climb the section you are now pitching because you can't be arsed to wait or climb back up to it, then that seems pretty selfish to me?

Fair enough abbing back in if no one else is on the line but there were a minimum of 5 people on the pitches behind you.

 

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 Sophie G. 12 Mar 2018
In reply to dunnyg:

If someone else has got on a route, especially an ice-route, that's it as far as I'm concerned: it's theirs until they've finished it. I certainly don't want to start up it before they're out of the way and the artillery has stopped  

As you say, it's a bit crap to use an abseil to nip in in front of another team. At the very least discourteous. Quite likely to be dangerous too.

There's plenty of ice out there. No need to fight for one route when there are loads of others to play on.

Or at least, there are in Scotland. I've never climbed on Great End. And tales like this don't encourage me to try...

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OP dunnyg 13 Mar 2018
In reply to Sophie G.:

It is nice but a bit on the busy side! I'd stay in Scotland (until the midges come out anyway).


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