A misadventure on Ben Nevis, 16 March 2013.
“On belay. Don’t
fall”
I’m sitting awkwardly
into the snow slope, attached to two ice screws and half buried in
drifting snow. Stuart has just reached the base of the cornice atop
Smith’s Route on Ben Nevis, just 4m from the summit plateau. The
walkie talkie crackles his pronouncement on the reliability in his
anchor. I think back to the numerous other occasions I’ve heard the
same worried call over the radio. It’s never been particularly
inspiring.
The snow’s gotten
pretty bad now, and any mark of his passage has already disappeared.
Scottish winter weather at its finest. The screws come out and I’m
moving up again – this terrain is easy enough, certainly a lot
easier than the last pitch, which I failed miserably on. My gloves
have frozen solid while belaying in the blizzard and ice has formed
on my eyebrows. This must be what they call full conditions.
Following the rope up
the steepening central ramp, the ice turns to hollow honeycombed
unpleasantness. I join Stuart at the ‘belay’, the cornice looming
over us, the summit mocking us in its proximity. It’s 2.30 – last
time we were on the way down by now.
The day started off as
well as any Scottish day ever could. A glorious weekend on the Ben a
fortnight ago left me very psyched, and I managed to infect Stuart
with my enthusiasm on a visit home to Belfast last week. He caught
the citylink bus over on Friday, and north we headed in the Focus
cragmobile estate. Down went the back seats, and out came the
sleeping bags. A clear night, good sign. The alarm set for 5.30.
As it does with almost
depressing regularity, 5.30 rears its ugly head - but for once I find
it quite easy to rouse myself at this inhumane time. Hard not to be
psyched – it’s perfectly clear, total visibility, a good
forecast, low avalanche risk. Couldn’t be better. Today is going to
be good.
Alpine glory, from the CIC hut
The 2 hour slog to the
CIC hut passes in no time at all, and Ben Nevis looks splendid in its
winter coat. There’s no wind, and we share the usual banter with the
other climbers emerging from and getting ready at the hut – it’s
all very pleasant and civilised for the Ben.
“What are you going
for?”
“Tower Ridge, haven’t
done it before”
“You’re in for a
treat, it’s a classic, did it 2 years ago on a day like this”
“Excellent, what
about you guys?”
“We’ll have a go at
Smith’s, bit of a slog up to get to it but sure it’s quite short,
then we’ll drop down Number 4 gully and maybe have a go at Italian
Climb or something. Sure we’ve loads of time, and when I was here
last week we topped out by midday, plenty of time to do two routes.”
I think I know what I’m
doing by this stage, having spent the season in Scotland, on a
university placement at a power station in Ayrshire.
There’s a well worn
track up Observatory gully. Two teams on Point Five Gully and another
two gearing up for it, despite routes either side being empty. Seems
a bit silly to me - having climbed it (and somehow had it to
ourselves) a fortnight ago I wouldn’t fancy being underneath
someone in that chimney. At least Smith’s looks free.
Echo Wall
Sure enough it is –
past Point Five we’re breaking trail. Echo Wall looks steep. That
Dave MacLeod is a mad eejit. Slog slog slog. I must be getting good
at this walking up hill lark.
Stuart enjoying a classic Scottish approach
We reach Gardyloo
Buttress at 9.20am. Smith’s Route looks good, plenty of ice on it.
The weather’s still glorious – still and cloudless, an Alpine
feel to the whole affair, might as well be in that amphitheatre on
the Italian side on Mt Maudit in July, nor Scotland in March! Hard
not to feel a bit smug and superior.
Smith's Route takes a line through the middle of the buttress
Stuart takes first
lead. He’s not done a huge amount of winter climbing but he’s
keen, and stronger than I am. He got through an epic on Glover’s
Chimney last year fine and he’s used to suffering, coming from a
caving background. He’s about to become President of QUBMC anyway,
so he should be well fit for it.
Stuart leading
Sure enough, he is –
despite a pair of knackered crampons borrowed from the club which
don’t seem to stay in ice very well, he makes short work of the
deceptively steep first pitch and belays in a cave between two
icicles. I’m feeling good; this is what it’s all about. The ice
isn’t as plastic as I’d hoped - explains Stuart’s difficulties
with the crampons. We’ll be at the top in an hour or two, sure it’s
two hard pitches then easy ground after that.
The second pitch is the
crux and my turn to lead. A steep traverse followed by a sustained
vertical section. This looks scary. Oh well, I’ll give it a bash,
man up and all that.
And lo, it is scary.
Traversing on steep ice is difficult and slow. I’m Irish, I’m not
built for this ice climbing lark. Thoughts of summer weather and
jamming cracks at Fair Head drift through my mind. My crampons aren’t
going in as well as I’d hoped; I’m over gripping the axes.
There’s a hymn I haven’t heard since primary school stuck on
repeat in my brain. I get across and fire a screw in, relief. Moving
up – Christ, this is steep. Another screw goes in. Axe, step, step,
lock off. Getting tired. In goes the next axe. Keep moving – looks
like a rest a couple of moves up ahead. Crampons keep popping out –
breathe! . Midnight Cruiser, that’s a nice soft touch E1, far
better than this cold suffering... Another screw goes in, but my arms
are really suffering. Axe, step, step, slip, axe. Lock off. Lots of
nice bridging rests at Fair Head too. I let go of one axe to shake
out – my other arm begins to unravel. Uh oh. Switch over – the
same happens again. I haven’t got enough strength left to hold the
lock-off while placing the other axe above me. B*llocks.
“Stuart, watch me, I
think I’m about to come off!”
Now I’ve embraced the
leashless approach to winter climbing, and my Matrix Lite axes are
attached to me with a length of 5mm cord through the grip rests. I
used to attach this cord to my harness with a karabiner, but this
would always get tangled up in my crampons – so I’ve taken to
clipping it to a sling that I carry over my shoulders. This, it turns
out, is not the brightest idea.
My prediction to Stuart
was right. I come off, but the rope doesn’t come tight – the axes
hold and I stop abruptly, hanging with a sling over my head, holding
me up by my right shoulder. Right arm going dead. Oh dear.
I struggle out of the
sling and slump onto an ice screw. Now my axes are out of reach.
Brilliant.
20 minutes and some
ersatz aid climbing later (hanging clipped to a screw, placing
another screw at full reach, clipping the rope to the top one,
standing in a sling and hanging from the top screw, repeat) I’m
back up at my axes. Five metres to easier ground, but I’m shattered
and my arms hurt. Maybe I bit off a bit more than I can chew.
Eventually I wobble
onto the snow ramp above, and in go two ice screws. I can see the
cornice above, happy days. I can also see a big wall of cloud coming
in from the southeast – that wasn’t in the forecast.
Stuart races up the
pitch, not needing to rest at all. Very impressive, maybe I should’ve
given him that lead as a Development Opportunity. At least he
was terrified on it as well, wouldn’t do for him to enjoy himself
too much.
Stuart reaching the belay atop the crux pitch
We swap over the gear and Stuart sets off up
what I hope is the final pitch – my antics below having put us a
bit behind schedule.
The cloud arrives, and there goes the lovely Alpine weather – replaced with heavy winds and a lot of snow. Damn.
Spindrift down my neck.
Ahh, it’s been a while. Jaysus, it’s cold! My gloves rime up and
start to freeze. That’s inconvenient.
P3. Just before the blizzard. Daft cornice visible above
Stuart doesn’t see an
obvious way through the cornice. He sets up a belay of sorts and
makes clear his feelings toward it over the radio. I follow him up
over the increasingly bad snow and ice until reaching the honeycomb
and powder affair of the monster cornice. Ah now, this doesn’t look
great. No matter – there must be a way through further over.
There isn’t. I
remember that according to the UKC logbook no-one has climbed this in
two weeks, and there’s been a fair bit of weather in that time. I
traverse along the steep powder, towards Tower Gully. Between gusts
there are voices from Tower Ridge but I can’t see more than 10m in
front of me in the intermittent whiteout. The snow under the building
powder starts making worrying whomping noises as I go along and
there’s nowhere decent for gear or a gap in the cornice. Eventually
it clears just enough to see that there is no way through the
cornice. Hmm.
I turn back and find a
patch of what seems to be good ice in the cornice above my head. In
go a couple of ice screws and I belay Stuart over. We hatch a plan –
Stuart, being tall, will reach as high as he can, plant his axes, and
pull up through the overhang. A bellyflop over the top should see him
on the plateau.
He gives it a go. The
axes go in, he pulls, he’s over the lip, he’s moving up and then
he’s lying upside down on the slope below me.
“It’s just powder.”
Unperturbed, he tries
again. Slightly farther but whoosh, down he goes again. And a third
time. This isn’t going well.
I have a go at aiding
my way through like I did on the steep bit earlier. Hanging off the
belay, I place a screw as far up in the good ice as I can. Seems
solid. I clip a sling to the belay, stand in it, clip myself to the
highpoint.
Bang.
Now I’m upside down
on the 65° slope below the cornice – and so is Stuart. Not only
has the screw I was attached to ripped out, but so has half the
belay.
Right.
Now we’re running out
of options. The weather’s just getting worse, its 4pm, we can’t
climb up, there’s nothing to abseil off, and the blasted cornice is
too big to dig through. In any case we’d have to chop away what
little we’re attached to. And so, out comes the emergency phone
from the first aid kit.
“Mountain Rescue,
please.”
Of course, the
helicopter can’t come near us in this weather. Clag all the way
down to the valley, according to Donald on the phone. It’ll take at
least 3 hours for the brave folk of the Lochaber MRT to reach us –
Donald advises we try and force a way down. We’re not keen, there’s
no way we can get down the way we came up, everywhere else is steep
powder with the gods know what below, and there’s no anchor worth
speaking of. But we’re getting cold, and I don’t know how we’ll
be in 3 hours’ time. I traverse back over to the top of the route
to hunt for good ice, just for something to do.
No luck. It’s just
honeycomb ice and powder. Even worse than the ‘good’ ice that
failed before! We need something better for an abseil. I keep
digging.
And then, like Zhukov’s
armies at Stalingrad, salvation appears from the winter gloom.
Another climber appears out of the murk below us – coming up from a
different direction to we had. A shouted exchange reveals he’s also
on Smith’s; furthermore, he has come up an easy ramp that he’s
happy to down-climb when he sees no way over the top. Not only that,
his belayer is attached to a peg belay 40m below. Happy frigging
days.
I inform Stuart that we
were back in business, and start climbing down. Snow coming in so
heavy that the tracks from the climber below are already gone by the
time I reach them. How did we miss this way up? This is far better.
Decent snow, I even get an ice screw in and tell Stuart he can start
moving. We’re downclimbing on grade II/III snow and ice but I don’t
mind, the axes are going in nicely and the feeling’s coming back in
my hands. Yes lad! I call Mountain Rescue to say that we can get
ourselves down now; they’re glad to hear it and stand down.
Thankfully they haven’t set off yet.
I reach the peg belay.
We only have one 60m rope, meaning we can only abseil 30m at a time.
The Three Wise Men of the other party are happy enough to let us
abseil on their pair of 60m ropes, meaning we can reach easy ground
in one go. Manna from heaven.
By 6.30pm we’re back
at the base of the route. It’s getting dark, I don’t notice the
snow anymore. I put my hood back on, filling my jacket with powder.
Damnit. The snow is thigh deep, probably not the safest – but we
have to get down. Wading past Echo Wall (definitely mad, that
MacLeod) and the Douglas boulder, the snow somehow doesn’t part
with the mountain and soon the lights of the CIC appear below. We’re
unscathed. Time for some celebratory chocolate and to take off the
gear we don’t need any more. Out comes the camera to capture this
moment for posterity – Stuart’s photo sums up the mood perfectly.
This is the life
“Something tells me
we’re not getting another route done today.”
9pm, back at the car.
Everything is soaked. Bacon and pasta never tasted so good. The
police pay us a visit to fill in a mountain incident form. I’ve
never sat in the back of a police car before, I suppose this means
people in Belfast will respect me more.
We write off Sunday (St
Patrick ’s Day). There’s a lot of fresh snow, but mostly we’re
completely shatnered and need to recover physically and
psychologically. Retreat to Paisley, but our plans to have a quiet
pint in Wetherspoon’s are shattered – the local team have won a
game of fitba, it seems, and everyone is quite jolly about it.
Lessons learned: never,
ever, underestimate the Ben. All that extra stuff you carry ‘just
in case’ is sometimes very, very useful. Two-way radios are the
business for mountaineering; I don’t know how I managed without
them. It’s worth carrying 2 ropes in case you have to abseil.
Always be mindful of escape routes while climbing. Cornices are
b*stards. The weather forecast can be wrong. Malt loaf is the
business when you’re cold and tired.
Pile jackets are still the best
There are 3 guys out
there (whose names I never caught) to whom I owe pints. And that’s
not to mention Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, whose services we
didn’t require but whose support was invaluable. Their dedication
is incredible, particularly as they are all volunteers, and they
don’t get near enough recognition.
