Point Five Gully V 5 ****

The outlook was good if a bit windy and we'd heard on the grape vine (ukc) that Point Five Gully was in good nick. Considering it is "The most famous ice gully in the world!" how could we pass up our chance.

We managed to make an early start after an awkward night sleeping in the car.

We reached the foot of the climb at about 9:30.

Taba lead the first pitch up good ice.

I took the second pitch which felt like a long one, I ended up having to dig through four inches of ice to uncover  gear placements for the belay.

Here is Taba taking on the rogue pitch.

We also got to enjoy some traditional point five spin drift.

The steep snow on the upper basin (the source of all that lovely spin drift) although technically not that hard, was made intimidating by the fact that the gear was very sparse and there was a pretty big cornice, but after 15 minutes Taba cut a channel through and we reached the top.

We celebrated our success with a short rest in the summit shelter and a few swigs of Morgans Spiced Rum that some kind soul had left, before heading back down the Red Burn to the car.