East Ridge Of Douglas Boulder
Posted by Max Hunter on 09th February, 2017
Lena and I both had days off, and so there was another opportunity to climb together – which doesn’t seem to happen that often these days. We spent some time wondering where to go, and I nearly went for the steep east buttress of the Dragon’s Tooth in Ballachulish, but I wanted something I hadn’t done before, and yet avoid the avalanche hazards higher up. I remembered that in 2014 Simon Richardson had done a first ascent of the East Ridge of Douglas Boulder (BMC International meet) with Rose Pearson ( see report HERE ). We found it on theUKC website ( link HERE ) and it’s described as – “120m, 3 pitches. East Ridge of Douglas Boulder. Climb broken grooves to a big stepped corner. Easier ground to the top”. This sounded great, so we thought we’d give it a go.
When we got to the CIC, we saw that we would be able to make the approach safely, and get to the route. Lena wanted P1, so off she went finding the line. She let me have P2 which was great. The pitch is really safe with lots of protection, and lots of fun hooks to pull all day on. It would have been much easier if the snow was neve and not just crud however. Lena led the final pitch to the top, where we met up with some French teams who had all gone on the ridge on the other side.
Besides us and the French, there were about 3 teams on Ledge Route, and I didn’t see anybody else on the hill.
I’ll def do this route again at some point.
East Ridge of Douglas Boulder (IV,5 or IV,6?)
Lena starting P1
Lena questing upwards on P1
Comfortable belay at end of P1
First corner done
Final pulls on the second corner
End of the second corner
Final awkward bits to the belay
Lena sets off for the top of the DB
Quick ab off from the top of DB