Depending on which guide you read, the West Wall Route of Coire Bhrochain is either ..
".. Excellent rock, steep and exposed" (1961),
".. one of the best routes of its grade in the Cairngorm" (1985) or
"... some crumbly rock" (1997).

Which guidebook you take is principally a question of style. I had contemplated a Murray-style moonlit ascent or even in tweeds with fishing rods for Coire an Lochain. In the end it was the 1985 guidebook we took, all dressed up in mountain bikes and garish outdoor clothing.

The last occassion which had brought us this way was my "stag", the cycle to the Beanaidh burn being completed with paper antlers attached to the lid. It had been the Batchelor's Buttress of Gleann Einich on that day but thankfully married life had precluded any further attempts in that dubious direction.

This time it was just Chris and I who dumped the bikes lower down the glen and headed up the Beanaidh Bheag towards Braeriach. (If you get the chance to drink out of this burn, it really is the finest water.)

At the summit we met what would loosely be described as ex-cons, or more possibly pre-cons, on an outdoor jolly. "Right boys, three days in the Cairngorm or a thousand lashes, what's it to be ?"

Although their priorities were getting the stove going and rolling cigareetes in the wind, they were very impressed with the steepness and the September snow patch, and less so with us. "Wha, y'gonnae go doon there ?" We felt heroic in a not-quite-understood kind of way as we strode off to find the entrance gully to the base of the route.

"Ah, there go two role models for ya boys, two Cairngorm aficionados knowing exactly where they are going in life". We felt a little flattened as we retreated, bloodied, back out of the top of one of the more rotten of the massif's gullies. I'd surfed a giant slab, cutting my wrist open in the process and Chris had had to cut steps up vertical unconsolidated gravel. We skuled off to the east.

At the route base at last, it didn't exactly look as I'd imagined, (does it ever ?), but the rock scenery was grand. The ancients must have loved it what with one hundred foot of line and hobnails and standing on each other's shoulders and all that. Chris was keen too to start out on his first multi pitch lead ever. Who was I to stand in his way ?

The climb starts steeply and leads you through a slight, fragile groove to the base of the quartz staircase. This is a curious feature but then the granite hereabouts seems a bit curious too, compared with the solidity of the Loch A'an basin. Nowhere too hard, the staircase leads up and round to a final series of lovely aretes. Chris had done the main climbing which left me to enjoy looking around and down. "A short route with a long approach" would be one way to look at it, but life has so much more to offer than just a ticked guidebook.

As if to confirm this, as we topped out and toppled down the ridge, two huge eagles launched below us, white tails lit by the evening sun, and glided off towards the blood red Sgorans. A real magic day.