The Mountaineering Council of Scotland

© A Millennium celebration by the MCofS

Completed Ascents

Saturday 26th May 2001 1948 climb - Crystal Ridge grade - diff Coire Sputan Dearg, Ben MacDhui

1st ascentionists / 1st Free ascentionists R Still & EG Lawrence Guidebook The Cairngorms Vol 1 P145 The article & photos by Terry Gifford The Millennium Climbers were Terry Gifford, Julian Cooper and Pip Hopkinson.

Rising above the last hump of wild hill, blown brown, wind trammelled and wet, the snows of Ben Macdhui lie back between the black knuckles of the mountain's fist, clenched against a sky tearing across the Cairngorms' fragile skin, worn now as much by walkers as by winters, their innocent boots kicking at bare bones. And is the naked stone of this fist, 'the sub-arctic jewel of Scotland', clenched against the National Park, or gleaming in the centre of its ring? Cairngorm – a chairlift, a restaurant, now a funicular. The ptarmigan croaks its protest at appropriation, but how could the snow bunting have hoped to halt a funicular in EU law? So how much longer (old battles lost and won) can any citizen cycle through the gates to Derry Lodge, pass deer over-grazing the Seringeti Plains', and the struggling Scots Pines to turn up into the secluded corrie and climb the finger of Crystal Ridge onto the path-worn plateau? Crystal Ridge – glinting, grazing, crumbling its crystals under boots and Cairngorm thaws, poised between rock, snow and run-off to the sandy glen. it speaks only of isolation and change: Wilderness Permits, Bike Bans, Radio-linked Rangers, less snow, more zoning, campaigns to save the midge.   completed routes

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