North Face Route and Link Up

Today John and I headed to Buachaille Etive Mor to see if we could escape the weather.  On arrival to John's favourite mountain the weather didn't look hopeful.  We wandered in with an open mind, a rack and a single rope.  On arrival to Great Gully it was raining so I decided we would head up North Buttress as John had already done Curved Ridge.  Whilst popping on waterproofs and gear it cleared up and blue sky appeared all around us.  A quick change of plan.  We traversed the mountain to get to the bottom of North Face Route (Severe).  I had never done this in summer but I did it 2 winters ago to give a sustained V,6 which was fantastic.  Climbing the route in summer brought back many great memories of the winter ascent, I bit my lip on some bits, asking myself how I climbed it with crampons and axes?!  We followed the exact winter line I took and it had some great pitches of rock in the upper sections.  After topping out we nipped over to Rannoch Wall psyched for another route.  With only one rope we were unable to abseil back down but fortunately Mike was just abseiling down after climbing Agag's Groove.  John had only climbed January Jigsaw on this face.  After a chat with Mike we all went to climb another route so we could team up on the abseil.  Mike went on January Jigsaw and we set off on Agag's Groove (VD).  We caught a team up on Agag's right where Jan Jig crosses, so we decided to shoot up in front of Mike.  As John had done these last two pitches we decided to have a go on a rather slippery and slimy Satans Slit (VS), a pitch I had never tried.  We topped out and abseiled down with Mike and His client.  Thanks Mike!  a great day finished by a wee descent down Curved Ridge.