First winter climb

On Friday I climbed Ledge Route on Ben Nevis with C and N.

We left the cottage at 3:40 am and set off through the streets of Fort William. There was nobody else about and it felt surreal to me to be all done up in walking gear in the middle of the night.

We walked along a main road empty of cars, and then turned off to go through the yard of a distillery. It was so apt for a story of Highland climbing, it almost seemed twee, and we filmed the long lines of wooden barrels outside the sheds. Then round the back we found the start of the path, and immediately it was all change: no pavement here of course, hardly even a discernible track. We tramped along beside a stream, crossing it on strange stile-like structures. The pace was just that bit faster than I'd have chosen. To my horror I began to tire already and we'd only been out half an hour. My body objected strongly; it felt like choir practice at 7am, like the first mile of a run; I toyed with the idea of quitting - not for real, just the idea floated through my head. Fortunately the others mentioned walking-in glitches too.

I remember seeing the first snow. A small patch to the right of the path - I thought it was a dirty rag on the ground at first, but soon it was on both sides and then everywhere. We were still very low down. We crunched along on it; after a while it got far deeper. Sometimes it held your weight, sometimes it didn't. When I stumbled my pack slid forward to the back of my neck, and the edge of the snow was sharp round my shin.

A very slight wind got up as we went higher and my T-shirt wasn't really enough any more, but we were well on our way to where we'd stop and change clothes so I kept going. This was a mistake: by the time we reached the hut I was the coldest I've ever been, shivering badly and my hands very stiff (which I hadn't noticed happening). I put my huge down jacket and woolen mitts on and warmed up very fast though. We clamboured into climbing harnesses and put on crampons (I think I'd put them on a bit earlier next time too). C sorted out his rack of gear and we all switched to climbing layers: thermal base and heavy waterproof.

The hut was all locked up. It's private anyway. A wind generator whirred round like a ghost presence. When we first got that far it was still dark but as we got ready dawn came and I saw the mountainsides around us for the first time.

We began to go up a gully. N behind me soon pointed out that one of my crampons had broken loose. C did it up tighter for me and we set off again. Shortly after that, as I was making heavy weather of the deep snow and my first attempts at using crampons, one of them came off again. C came to fix it again for me.

We were in a bad spot for avalanches. A cornice crowned the top of the gully; a big crack ran up the snow on our left, and minor avalanche debris from several days ago was on both sides of us. C's steps ahead of me disturbed small slabs of the top of the snow, delaminating from the softer layers beneath. I looked at all of this, and given the crampon problem too, it felt unwise to carry on. I said so. C explained more about the condition of the snow, and that the avalanche forecast was very good, and we were good and early. We'd known that gully would be like that and we'd only be in it briefly. My crampons stayed on for the rest of the day.

At the top of the gully C set up some sort of anchor and N and I attached ourselves to it. C then roped up and went up the next section, which was steeper still, to find a belay. Slowly all the rope paid out, right to the end. He was out of sight. We waited and waited, chatting quietly and listening. I took some pictures:







After a long time C actually came back down. He could find nothing. More discussion. He set off again, and again all the rope was paid out, and we waited. Eventually he called to us that he'd got a belay.

And so I began my first bit of snow climbing. It was incredibly easy: with an axe in each hand and following C's tracks, I worked my way steadily up. It felt very secure and progress was quite quick. I was amazed how short 50m can be, and met C at the end of the rope with a huge grin on my face. I was doing the very, very easy bit: C set up all the belays, and N behind me removed them as we moved on - all I had to do was move along in the middle.

I'm never good at remembering which pitch was which (ie I can't remember for the only other outdoor climb I've ever done). Belays were very hard to find and not very secure. Towards the end of the pitched section, C said to me, "Climb on up past me and stop on that arete" - but it turned out not to be an arete, it just kept going, so I stopped when he said, "Make yourself safe". I put my walking axe deep into the snow and clipped myself to it, then I scooped out a bucket seat near it, carefully turned round into it, and dug my heels into the snow, all as I'd been shown to do that morning. The angle was pretty steep, my rucksack pressed up against me. I wanted to get my belay jacket out but turning my pack round to reach it seemed perilous - what if I dropped it? There was a karabiner on the haul-loop of the pack to secure it but I couldn't reach that and I was using my other axe for support by my side. I fiddled about and dropped a mitten, which stupidly I'd not attached to my wrist (though I did have spare - borrowed - gloves). It slid down about 6 feet away from me - only just out of reach but it would be daft to move. I hoped there'd be no wind before C was able to bring it up for me. There wasn't, but he was understandably critical. I got the jacket out, and kept it on after that, warm though it was. A couple more pictures: the second shows C.





After about one more pitch, we reached the top of that section and hoped for easier ground, just ending the climb with a walk along a ridge. Well, it was and it wasn't: nearly all of the height-gain was done now, but the ridge turned out to be a monster to me. I'm ok with exposure in summer but this rattled me. It was all narrow, in places extremely so, up and down, with the usual breakable crust of snow, and mysterious gaps in the rocks underneath. I was the middle on the rope and had to keep stepping over it. N was talking to me but it was blurred and I rudely ignored him. I hated every step and was horribly slow. "I'm never doing this again," I helpfully told myself. Eventually we came to a flat area and I could sit down. It was the first time I'd sat down without needing an anchor for nearly 9 hours.

And then we walked down. At about 7pm my feet and a stomach ache got the better of me and I took a pain-killer - or I was given one: yet more kindness. I was molly-coddled the whole way and loved every minute of it in retrospect! We got back at 10:20pm.

For the next three days the climb went round and round in my head. I only half-saw what was really around me - part of me stayed up on the ridge somehow. I'd looked forward to the climb for weeks and was dreading its dropping into the past, but it seems to be current in my mind still, playing along like accompanying music.