[A story in which our intrepid Brixton Climbers go north, find some hills, get blown about, learn valuable life lessons and then come home]
On Thursday the 3rd of January, two Brixton Climbers set off from London in Betty the Van, collected another one in Oxford and a fourth from the station car park at Oxenholme (where Oskari ad been waiting for two hours in the cold and rain after they shut the station). Snow had been forecast across the country, but we ended up driving through heavy rain for what seemed like hours to get up to Wasdale on the far side of the Lake District. After some sloppy mapreading in the dark, I pronounced us to be 8 miles away roughly every 15 minutes for about an hour (Note for future trips: the far side of the Lakes is very far from the near side...). At around 1am we finally found our way to Murt farm camping barn, a rather basic kind of place where it was so cold you could see your breath indoors (but still warmer than the Butterton B barn we stayed in at the Peak District last November).
After an early start on Friday, the drive seemed worth it: we looked outside to find ourselves right next to a line of craggy-snow covered mountains, with good visibility. A chicken laid an egg for Pascal. Life was good. The plan for the day was for a straightforward walk up Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England, then drive up to Scotland but in the winter things are rarely straightforward. We set off at a punishing pace up a snowy valley, aiming for the col between Scafell Pike and Scafell and hoping to follow the path to the summit. The visibility we enjoyed earlier quickly disappeared, and so did the path once we hit the snowline. As we approached the col, we followed what looked a bit like a path on the left, which soon turned into a narrow, exposed traverse across the turfy, craggy face of the mountain. It was soon clear that this wasn't a path at all, but it was an interesting route so we pressed on. After a couple of hundred metres, the turf ledges we had been following dwindled out at the foot of a steep, narrow snow-filled gully. Naturally, the only way was up, and we found ourselves scrambling up steep unconsolidated soft snow covering dodgy loose scree in a gully that at times narrowed to 5 or 6 feet wide. I found myself wishing I had brought a helmet, a rope and some gear on this 'easy walk'. Though frightening, progress was fairly straightforward until we hit an awkward and slightly overhanging chest-high step, obscured by a deep snow drift. This required heavy excavation followed by a balancy bridging move (pulling up -but not too hard- on an axe pick driven in to loose scree), but soon after we topped out on the summit plateau. Conditions up there were pretty bleak, with strong winds and snow and hardly any visibility. The BBC reported wind chill of -16c on Hellvellen on Friday, and I'm sure it was at least as cold on Scafell. As we had strayed from the path, navigation became a bit of a guessing game -"if we assume that we're here and we follow a bearing of 85 degrees we should get over there...". This technique was surprisingly successful, and we were soon at the summit for a cuppa and a very very swift lunch. We descended to another col to the north, where we saw a rat scampering across the snow - not the kind of wildlife you expect on top of a mountain. Alex later speculated that an eagle had caught the rat down below, then dropped it on the ridge. From the col we followed a wide scree slope down a tricky steep slope, then climbed back up over a ridge to take us back into the original valley and so back to the van. All in all a good but punishing day in full-on winter conditions. All of us were pretty tired by that point, but Oskari got the privledge of doing the 7 hour drive to Scotland (through more pouring rain and snow showers). Compared to the basic conditions of the previous night, the BMC-run Alex MacIntyre Memorial Hut (http://www.mountain eering-scotland. org.uk/huts/ macintyre. html) was the height of luxury: a coal fire, a drying room, hot showers and a good kitchen - and only £5.50 per night.
Saturday Pascal and Arek decided to meet the Crystal Palace climber off the coach (we had thought he was on the coach due to problems with the train, but he actually did the coach journey voluntarily. ..) and do some retail therapy in Fort William. With lots of new snow followed by a thaw leading to considerable avalanche risk in the gullies and strong southwesterly winds forecast, Oskari and I decided to try the northeast ridge of Sgorr Bhan/Sgorr Dearg (the start of the Ballachulish Horseshoe). It's a beautiful and exposed rocky ridge up a perfect-looking pyramidal mountain and clocks in at Grade I winter climb. In summer it would be a good but straightforward scramble and in more consolidated winter conditions it would also be a lot easier, but all the fresh snow made progress difficult. It was too loose to use crampons or to accept axe placements but made the rocks slippery as anything and covered up all the hand and foot holds. Once we hit an awkward and slippery vertical section, we decided to rope up to practice moving together - only to find virtually no protection, with all the rock spikes sloping the wrong way and all the cracks filled with thawing turf. Still, it was a good fun climb, with plenty of exposure as there were steep drops on both sides of the ridge. As we were heading up from the northeast, the climb was fairly sheltered but as we topped out towards the summit we were hit by a blasting wind that made walking difficult and lowering visibility. We paused briefly to discuss whether to try for the summit or descend down an easier ridge, and Oskari continued 10 metres further up to try to get a better view. An instant later, he was sat in the snow next to me again, having been picked up and deposited there by the wind. I can only guess at the windspeeds required to throw Oskari through the air... That decided it for us, and we headed down the descent route on the NNE ridge - we'll be back to finish the horseshoe another day.
On Sunday we went in for an alpine-style start to try to get a route in on the Ben, but it had been snowing heavily all night up on the tops and was raining pretty hard when we set off up the long trail towards the CIC hut and the north face. As we set off (around 7:30, and still dark) we were surprised to see another group of people just coming down from the hill, walking with their headtorches. We later learned that a group had a bit of an epic climbing Point Five gully and didn't top out on the summit of Ben Nevis (in heavy wind and snow) until 2am. I'm glad I wasn't with them. As we ascended we passed several other parties descending - too much new snow and high avalanche risk meant that most of the routes were out of the question. Sadly, visibility was low so we couldn't even get a good view of most the climbs. As Oskari, Arek and Alex hadn't climbed the Ben before, we decided to head up via a walking route - the Red Burn path from the CIC hut to the Halfway Lochain, then the tourist track to the top. After the Lochain, we hit deeper and deeper snow, and progress was exhausting. We split into two groups - some of us attempted to follow Oskari's punishing pace and others followed more steadily up behind. As we approached the summit plateau, navigation became challenging: clouds closed in and most of the landmarks were covered in snow. The footsteps we were following gradually gave out. It's a strange experience to be up there and only see white in every direction - with occasional cornices and steep drops appearing out of the mist. After a couple of false summits we finally found the summit shelter peering out of the gloom and covered in strange hoar frost formations. The second team arrived about half an hour afterwards. Pascal saw some snow buntings but sadly I missed them -though we did see some hooded crows. Thankfully, descending deep snow is easier than climbing up it, and we were treated to an incredible clear sunset on the way down. Alex put his waterproof gear to the test by gracefully falling into a stream on a crossing, but thankfully for him we didn't have far to go by that point. Headtorches were out once the second team reached the van - with the short days at the moment you both start and finish routes in the dark. It was a long and energetic day - even though there was no technical climbing, our ascent of the Ben was easily the hardest route of the trip. Nevertheless, I forced everyone to walk another mile and a half in the evening to get to the pub. The boy from Palace may have beat us at pool, but Brixton was victorious at darts...
The forecast for Monday was yet again pretty grim - considerable avalanche risk (cat 3), high winds, snow. I woke up feeling stiff and lazy after the previous days efforts and was in no hurry to get back out on the hill, especially in the rain. So it was with great surprise that we found great visibility down through Glen Coe and even a bit of sunshine on the sharp snow-covered mountains. As we hadn't expected good climbing conditions our route for the day was a bit vague: head to Buachaille Etive Mor and find a way to the top (conditions permitting) - proper ground up climbing. Buachaille Etive Mor is a big rocky mass of a mountains, with sheer cliffs on most sides, but once we set off a possible route up was quickly apparent. We climbed into Coire na Tuilach, where a wide snow slope steepened into a broad gully. The corrie was quite an amazing place, with ice lines hanging down some of the cliffs and the odd cornice guarding a few of the gully exits. As the avalance forecast was Cat 3, I was nervous about our intended route up the wide gully, but tracks frozen into the snow showed that it had been used several times recently and the top was thankfully cornice-free. Pascal blazed ahead as I dug several Ruschbloc tests and hasty pits to check the snow conditions, and muttered under my breath about windslab formed on soft loose snow. Once we were on it, however, it was clear that following the previous tracks was a pretty solid and stable line to take and the worst hazards would be on slopes of a leeward aspect. It was the first real solid snow we had on the trip, and was good ice axe and crampons practice for us all. Once we topped out at the col on the top of the corrie, the views we had enjoyed promptly disappeared, but we continued up to the summit of Stob Dearg (1021m) and onwards to a narrow pinnacle at the top of Curved Ridge. We watched another climber come up this fantastic-looking line (Grade II+) and added it to the wishlist for next time. On his way up, the climber had retrieved a jammed abseil rope left on Crowberry Tower - another sure sign that someone had had an epic the day before. As the visibility was gone and the winds were picking up, we decided to head back the way we came rather than continuing on to Stob na Broige, and had a fun bit of glissading practice on the lower slopes of the corrie. We also ran into a pair of ptarmigans, which turn white in the snow and make funny frog sounds. Sadly, habitat loss due to climate change means that these birds could be on the way out. As we arrived back at the van, heavy rain set in with yet more snow on the tops. I later learned that a couple of lines had avalanched on the Ben. The moral of the day is to remember that the weather and avalanche forecasts aren't always right - but they're not always wrong either.
The forecast for Tuesday was as bad as for Monday, but seeing as we had a good day out the previous day we decided to try our luck again. As the new snow had yet again led to a Cat 3 avalanche risk, our plan was to keep to the buttresses - Dinnertime Buttress (Grade II) up the west face of Aonach Dubh, then over the ridge down to Dorsal Arete (Grade II) on Stob Coire nan Lochain. We split into two teams, but one team suffered an setback when Arek discovered that 3 days of wearing new rigid boots had left his feet in such a state that he was unable to walk in them. Pascal and Arek went back to the hut to get Arek's other (more comfortable) shoes, and Alex, Oskari and I set off in the rain to start Dinnnertime Buttress. Aonach Dubh is not a Munro, but it is an impressive mountain, rising almost vertically up from next to the road. This makes oute-finding a bit easier, although I have to admit that my first reaction on seeing the soaring verticle line of the buttress was to think 'surely we can't be climbing that?' The rain eased once we started climbing, and visibility became fairly good. As there had been an overnight thaw and Aonach Dubh is a lower mountain, the snow cover didn't start until a good ways up the route. This was unfortunate. A short steep path led us onto a very steep, slippery, heather-covered slope with far too much loose rock and turf for comfort. As the slope steepened, our pace quickened - somehow it felt safer to be climbing up than to be standing still, where you might make the mistake of looking down. Even before the snow line, we found ourselves pounding the axes into the heather, and performing countless sandstone-style slippery mantleshelves up rock bulges. Roping up and belaying was out of the question, as the only anchors were thawing clumps of turf and heather. Eventually we passed the snow line, but this didn't make it more solid, only more slippery. Once the cars down below were dwindling to the size of small specks, we hit a snowy ledge underneath the sprawling rock mass of the top of the route, and stopped to crampon up and refuel. There are four possibilities for finishing the route, and we chose what we thought was the line of least resistance - traversing right into number 2 gully. The snow was deeper here and icy in places, so crampons were definitely useful. We followed a gently rising traverse around the side of the buttress, until this was interrupted by a steep narrow gully packed with dodgy-looking snow and leading into a long drop below. We decided that this was a good time to get out the ropes. Oskari carefully traversed across the deep snow of the gorge, then up the steeper traverse line next to a smooth rock wall on the far side. The snow was too loose for a bucket or buried axe belay, so he continued on to try to find somewhere solid. It was a good 40 metres before he found the first gear placement (a clever thread), but still some distance before any decent anchors to belay from. We shouted out rope lengths as the amount of rope left quickly diminished - 10 metres, five, three - until Oskari dug a boulder out of the snow for a stance a full 60 metres from the start of the pitch. Alex and I followed one by one, and I unclipped gear from the first rope and clipped it into the second as I passed. From Oskari's belay point, there seemed to be two possible routes to continue - a broad and straightforward snow slope leading out to the top on one side, and a series of tricky-looking rocky ledges leading off into the mist on the other. Naturally, we took the tricky-looking rock ledges. By this point we were soloing again in the hopes of moving a bit faster. Visibility was gradually weakening, and every few minutes we were hit by a gust of wind blowing spindrift down our necks, though it was fairly sheltered in between gusts. After crossing steep snow slopes back and forth between three or four rocky ledges, our progress was again stopped by a narrow gully full of deep soft snow with an icy crust on top - definitely not to be trusted. We built an anchor with a couple of hexes and decided to rope up again, only to find that the rope turned into a twisted mess as we bodged the flaking out. As we were sorting through the rope mess, we were hit by another strong gust of wind that made me hold on to the anchor - only this time it didn't stop, and the spindrift was replaced by icy new snow scouring our faces. At that point I began to curse myself for not putting on waterproof trousers - Ron Hills are great for walking in but less good at keeping out the wind. Alex led this time, and I tied in to the middle of the rope to save us from having to sort out the other rope. Again we found ourselves calling out rope lengths as the rope diminished before Alex could reach a good anchor. With five metres to go Alex dropped a sling around a sloping rock pinnacle, but it would have been questionable to belay from. Finally with approximately 0 metres to go, Alex wrapped a long sling around a boulder and belayed from there. At this point, the weather was really getting nasty, and I was getting cold from standing still at the belay point. Once I reached Alex's stance, I untied and soloed to the top of the ridge (so as to get somewhere that I could take off my harness and put on waterproof trousers and an extra layer), and Oskari and Alex did one more final 50m pitch to the top. At last, some decent snow - a quick snow pit revealed one single layer of solid neve, well bonded to the ground. Sadly, it wasn't to last, and we found ourselves trudging through deep powder on top of the ridge, often falling into waist-high drifts. It was snowing heavily, and the wind made life difficult -snow was 'falling' uphill, and even though visibility was about 30m it was hard to see anything at all with the snow blowing into our eyes. We had 2 1/2 hours of day light left. None of us had done the descent route before. It was clear that we wouldn't make it to the second climb or to the summit of the munro. Thankfully a bit of map and compass work showed that the easiest way down was on the steep slope directly over the ridge from where we had come up. After a few minutes, we looked up to see that the slope we had taken was in between two massive cliffs - I'm glad we found it so easily. We found a stream that led to a path down the hill into the pouring rain and eventually Pascal's van. Meanwhile, Pascal and Arek had walked up Stob Coire Nan Lochain and found all the gullies in prime avalanche conditions, though there were some people on the hard ice routes on the buttresses. Pascal found an unnamed route which wasn't as heavily corniced as the others and set off up it with Arek. They had some good views but the weather suddenly turned and they had to turn back - and got back to the van about 15 minutes before us.
On Wednesday, it was time to head back down south. The plan was to drive for an hour or two, nip up a Munro or two, then head for London. We had thought the forecasts up until that point had been pretty poor. Well, Wednesday was worse. Hurricane-force winds predicted for the mountain tops (135mph was recorded on Cairn Gorm) with 60-80mph winds even down below, plus heavy snow and cat 4 avalanche conditions. The drive across Rannoch Moor must have been a grade III route in itself, with the winds rocking the van back and forth and the road gradually disappearing under icy slush. The route we had chosen was Beinn Dorain (1076m), starting from the Bridge of Orchy. The wind was at our backs, which initially made walking easier, but higher up it was gusting so hard that staying upright took a bit of concentration. We hit deep fresh snow, and I fell over a couple of times after breaking through the snow into streams below. At this point, I have to admit I was tired of walking in the wind and scouring snow, and fatigue from the week was starting to set in. I turned back with Arek, leaving the others to carry on into the gale. They carried on up the corrie a bit higher, then turned back as well. Going out on the hill in gale force winds is a bit silly but somehow still wonderful and refreshing; going up to the tops in hurricane conditions is just a bad idea. Along the long journey back south, we could see the wreckage that the winds had caused - a lorry overturned on the motorway, the Erskine Bridge closed. The sun came out and lit up the snowy peaks. All of us were sad to go. Suddenly, life is once again very tame.
Lessons were learned by all. Here's mine:
- There's no such thing as bad weather, only different types of good weather. Forecasts shouldn't stop you from going out, but they should change expectations about what can get completed.
- As well as being scared of heights, I learned that I'm also scared of high winds, avalanche risk, loose rock, poor visibility and severe windchill. Like my fear of heights, I'm also slowly learning how to change this fear into informed judgement on when to carry on and when to turn back, instead of just blind panic - but it's a slow, hard process.
- Winter climbing is different than single pitch trad climbing. We didn't do anything too technically challenging, but there's an extraordinary range of factors to take into account, from the weather and snow conditions and avalanche risk to fitness, hydration and bloodsugar levels, navigation and routefinding, short days, long walk-ins, poor protection, etc., which all make winter climbing a physically, mentally and emotionally difficult (but rewarding) task.
- Winter skills are different too, with different types of rope-work and the need to move fast becoming paramount. I felt like I was learning to climb all over again.
- It's a wonderful world out there. When you stop worrying about the dodgy turf, the exposure, the driving snow, the howling winds, your blistered feel and cramping legs, the dwindling daylight and the fragile windslab, you look out on the hills and realise how amazing and beautiful it all is.
Can't wait to get back!
Jonathan
