July 2011 - Walking/Climbing - Ben Nevis

Skimming stones behind the CC hut

This trip was many things to me. It was the highest Munro, not to mention the highest mountain in the UK (Ben Nevis); it was a route that has been on my wishlist for ages not least because it counts as a through route, i.e. going through a fully enclosed hole (Tower Ridge); it was the neighbouring Munro that I'd wanted to do since I saw its aesthetic profile when I stood on top of Aonach Mor in winter a few years ago (Carn Mor Dearg arete), it was a trip with two friends I no longer see as often as I'd like to, and it was another step closer in achieving my aim of ticking all the Munros before I'm 40. Simon and Claire arrived at mine on the Friday evening, and we enjoyed some of my home-made alcohol beverages and discussed the route. On Saturday morning I attempted to prep us for the long drive with butcher's bacon and home-made tiger bread, then we began the drive up to Fort William. We arrived at a reasonable time, did a bit of shopping, moved up to the hut at Roy Bridge, Si and Claire whipped us up a tasty curry, then we had a wander along the river, and were in bed by 9 without getting too badly devoured by midges.

Things had gone well so far, but that was the easy bit. Sunday morning started early, but inauspiciously. We woke just after 5, and got to the Nevis Range ski centre car park to find I'd left my hiking socks in the hut. Secondly, we had the Climbers' Club key for the forest gate and higher car park, but according to a chap in the hut the foresty commission had changed the locks the previous week without letting the Climbers' Cub know, and on top of that we couldn't even get to the gate to check as we found there was a motorbike world championships being held in the Leanachan forest and their fences in the car park were blocking access to the forest track. Thirdly, while we were considering these problems some night security came over and told us only event VIPs could park in the car park, although as it was so early there were no staff there that knew where we *could* park. Also, despite the weather having been nice all week by all accounts, today the forecast was for showers and low cloud, and sure enough it was pretty overcast with a certain amount of dampness in the air. Nevertheless, none of these things were enough to cause us to change our plans, so we went back to the hut for me to pick up some more socks (I later found the others had rolled under the bed), and parked in the North Face car park instead. We began our walk in at 7 to 7, at first steeply through the forest then a more relaxed ascent up the banks of the Allt a' Mhuilinn to the CIC hut (altitude 680m), which we reached after an hour an a half. It was a little surreal to pass a 'digging in progress' sign along with two wheelbarrows and the digger itself under the cliffs of Ben Nevis 5km from the road, but it seems they are improving the path by the hut. Another half an hour later and we were at the start of the route.

We decided to miss out the Douglas boulder to save time, and went round the back via East Gully instead. I went first, and followed a little path which first went up easy grass and rock, and then steepened up a loose, muddy scree gully. I steadily picked my way up not yet sure of the friction on this terrain, at times having to bridge on holds that weren't quite big enough to inspire confidence in big boots, and holding onto rock that was clearly not well attached. I found it unpleasantly loose and was fervently hoping the rest of the route would not be like this. This gully took us to the Douglas gap, from which an open chimney left up onto the ridge proper. Claire took over here and carefully explored the holds and made progress up to safety. Thankfully the rock here was much more solid, but this meant we had to start from scratch 'finding our feet'. It was pretty steep, and I was glad that Claire could remember the moves she'd just made and pass the knowledge on to me to aid my upwards progress. We didn't get a rope out, but made a mental note not to feel ashamed to request one if we met another such obstable.

North Face of Ben Nevis

The information we had with us said that the next section was easy going, and indeed it was, and we made fairly rapid progress. Claire carried on picking the way upwards, and at some point I took over being in front. The scrambling was luxurious and despite the complete lack of views due to the lowe cloud I was really enjoying the gorilla like movement over the rock now. We kept our eye out for the Little Tower, which one description said was inconspicuous but another had some advice on how to tackle. We reach a little steeping that may have been it, but couldn't work out the advised approach of starting on the left and trending right up an awkward ramp to a corner, so instead took it straight on which was given as an alternative, since this way seemed worn and was marked with crampon scratches. I decided to be brave and stay in the lead, despite my climbing skills have falled into disuse, and although a little harder than the previous section it was never hard or scary and still fun.

This easy section of the ridge seemed to go on forwever, but after eventually we reached an area where the crampon scratches ran out, and there were several options, none of which seeming that likely. The left hand flank seemed most amenable so I tried a couple of grooves but although each led up a little, the slab above them looked like it would repel further progress. Claire retreated a metre or two and found a stepped groove that I'd missed, so we went up that. Then came an akward bit on a par with the earlier chimney, and decided that this was probably the Little Tower, as a ramp led righwards. Claire teetered across it, and gave us some feedback, before pulling stylishly over a steep block onto easier ground again. I approached the ramp in a different way, staying lower so that I was more in balance and not pushed backwards by my rucksack. That bit was okay, but I didn't like the feel of the move over the block so remembered my previous mental note about gear, and got Claire to pass me down a couple of slings that I attached to myself for safety for that one move, which I then made much more happily. I'm well aware that slings don't have any 'give' and if you fall on them you can generate a lot of force, both on your body and on the sling and rock, but in this situation the speed advantage overweighed all that, all that was needed was a little backup.

We carried on on more easier ground, until we reach the unmistakeable Great Tower, a vertical wall which could have been climbed but was of a quite different level of difficulty to the route so far. We had been expecting to summit the Great Tower direct since the route description had said to climb to its 'very ramparts', but reading further we realised that we were already at the ramparts, and it was here that the Eastern Traverse led off to the left to avoid this difficulty. Claire spotted the traverse and it was reassuringly wide, albeit in a fantastic position on the edge of the cliff and I'm sure it would be vertigo-inducing for many. At about this point some eerie whoops and cheers reached us through the mist, other people on the mountain somewhere, and we whooped back. The Eastern Traverse led us straight to the tunnel, which was my 'through route' section, and I dived eagerly ahead to thrutch myself up the inside of the fallen block and out of the hole at the top. It wasn't greasy as one description had warned, just fabulous. With the other two still engaged in this bit, I explored the next section which was described as steep with good holds. Steep it was, climbing the broken left wall of the Great Tower with triangular blocks jutting out so your body was always pushed outwards even if your hands and feet were in the niches above and below. It was reasonably okay though, no need for a rope although I did thread a sling through a hole and attach it to myself while I figured out the steepest move, and then all three of us were at the cairn on the tower.

We knew we were nearing the summit now, but still had to face the infamous Tower Gap, and were feeling a little jittery at the prospect. We first paused off the back of the Great Tower for a replenishing snack, then it was Simon's turn to be the intrepid explorer at the front so we sent him off across the next obstacle - between the Great Tower and Tower Gap the ridge narrows into a metre wide gendarme with vertical sides dropping into gullies that lead down to the coire floors. This bit in itself is particularly memorable, carefully sliding on your bum over the gendarme which a kind of rock gangway, the exposure from the sheer drops each side causing you to shrink down onto the rock and pray for high friction to hold you there. Simon investigated Tower Gap at the end of the ledge while Claire and I waited on it, enjoying the situation at the same time as trying not to think about it too much. There was already a rope in situ so Si clipped in to it, but there was a bit of a delay before he actually descended. From my vantage point I coudn't see what was going on, I just knew I was getting a little chilly and also a little damp as it had started to drizzle, but when I arrived I saw that someone had tied a knot in the rope to bring the two strands together. This knot was half way down the gap, so the rope wasn't actually much use as an abseil rope until you'd actually managed to lower yourself down to the bottom of the gap. Simon threw himself valiantly down it, and climbed skillfully up the other side, using the ab rope as protection although the higher he got the more horizontal it became - thankfully the difficulty eased with the height. Claire followed, then me, and I accepted the rope Si threw over to me, so I had direct assistance from above. Then we stowed the gear for the final section.

The refuge at the summit

The ramp leading away from Tower Gap was much easier than it looked from below although Claire wasn't keen on one of the moves - we were all a bit wobbly after the pause and confusion of Tower Gap and the odd rope work. Even after climbing up the other side I was worrying about the bit in the description noted as a 'final steepening' with no mention as to whether it was hard or easy. As it turned out it was barely noticeable, and suddenly we found ourselves standing on the summit plateau, an unexpected situation after being so absorbed by the route for so long. The mist still brought visibility down to around a hundred metres, but we could hear all manner of noises up ahead. Captivated, I gingerly stalked onwards while the other two sorted something out behind me, until the view cleared a little and I could see ghostly figures passing in either direction in front of me - we had reached the tourist path leading up from the right to the summit on the left, and there was a steady flow of people ascending by that route. In no time at all we'd joined the masses and covered the last couple of hundred metres across the plateau to the summit, and were standing there amist the sodden walkers and climbers, the ruins of the observatory, a war memorial, a trig point, a wooden roofed steel-box refuge, and a number of cairns, each artefact appearing out of the mist as the other faded in to it.

It was the first time up here for all three of us and we sat and had some food and drink. We'd made good time, 2 hours for the walk in and 5 hours on the route, and it was now 2pm, meaning we had time to descend by the CMD arete as planned.

We set off on a bearing, but then I made a brief error and led us over to the wrong shoulder, forgetting there were two. I soon realised my mistake and we backtracked 100 yards or so and found the path down the correct shoulder. We zig zagged down steeply for a good way, and had our moment of vindication when we found a levelling along with the the pole marking the escape route down Coire Leis, showing we were in the right place. There was also a feature that looked like a large rock chalice, which turned out to be a series of abseil posts, marking another descent option. Our route carried on ahead, with the flanks steepening again into the CMD arete. We followed the path along the back of it instead of scrambling along the crest, for speed's sake and because we'd already put in a good deal of toil on the way up so didn't need the extra difficulty at this point. There were still no views, and the rain that had started at Tower Gap had not stopped, so we were plodding along in waterproofs. It was a little disheartening having to walk with poor weather and no visual rewards, but at least it had held off while we were climbing. I personally was still enjoying the terrain, and imagining what a stunning situation it must be on a good day. The ridge curved round to the North and it didn't seem too long until we were only 1km from the summit of Carn Mor Dearg, and then 200m. Then a short hop along to the subsiduary top, then all that was left was the epically long path that descended mercilessly slowly to the Allt a' Mhuilinn.

We'd expected to descend fairly steeply back down to the valley floor, but the path we picked up seemed to be heading in pretty much the correct direction albeit staying high, so we followed it deciding it would be quicker than going off track. At points we thought it would never descend nor converge with the Allt a' Mhuillin path, but eventually we saw over a rib and were reassured that it would. As we came down out of the clouds we started to get a couple of views. Unfortunately by this point Tower Ridge was out of sight, but we saw the western part of the North Face, and round to Lochan Meall an t'Suidhe and beyond to Loch Linnhe. The rain stopped too, meaning we could take off our waterproofs, which was good as it was getting steadily warmer the lower we got. There was also a brilliant moment where I observed that we hadn't seen much wildlife except for the odd little brown bird, and added that I nearly always see Ptarmigan on Scottish hills… then as if by magic, just as we passed a bump on the path we stumbled over the largest flock of them I've ever seen, and they ran around for a bit before flying away, flashing white under their camouflaged grey backs. We saw some deer in the distance too, the other essential tick.



When we finally reached the Allt a' Mhuillin we wished we were still up on the flanks as it was pretty midgy, but thankfully that didn't last too long as it started drizzling again which kept them away - we weren't complaining this time. The path back along the river then through the forest began to drag, our feet were aching and our knees were sore. We didn't quite make it within 12 hours, but we reached the car at 7 past 7 having left at 7 to 7, and 12:15 isn't bad at all for such a long day out: 14km and 1480m total ascent with a fair amount of scrambling. The question is whether to go back and do it again on a fairer day, there are so many other Munros still to do but I think it would be worth it!