Shivling Attempts. During the spring Calvin Torrans, Edward Cooper, Alan Currans and I attempted two routes on Shivling. We first tried the unclimbed northwest face, spending five days on it before retreating because of persistent heavy snowfall. Three of us then attempted the normal west-ridge route, reaching the prominent, massive 300-foot sérac barrier in a day and a half. There we were repulsed by vertical ice, the consistency of which was like bullet-proof glass. The northwest face is on the right of the photograph opposite page 256 in A.A.J., 1983. We reached a point just one rope-length below the prominent central snowfield. From the bergschrund to there was 2000 feet of mixed ground, from easy snow to grade 3 or 4 ice. The weather in May, apart from a short spell at the beginning, was very unreliable with long spells of poor weather interspersed with a few days of good weather.

Ian Rea, Dalriada Climbing Club, North Ireland