Scottish ice climbing 2001

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This is a story from a club ice climbing trip to Glen Coe / Fort William. The RMC contingent consisted of Me and Erol, supplemented by 4 other guys I've climbed with in the Alps. Everyone had some experience of climbing on snow and ice but only Mike had led on ice before. We climbed on Stob Coire Nan Lochan, the Anaoch Eagach and Anaoch Mor. Routes climbed were: Boomerang Gulley, Forked Gulley, Left Twin and Right Twin.
Sunday was a glorious day so four of us went up to Stob Coire Nan Lochan whilst Mark and Andy, who had to leave on Monday afternoon, headed for the Anoach Eagach ridge. Me and Erol started off on the direct start variation of Dorsal Arete and decided to do it Alpine style (moving together). I spotted the route I wanted to go up but when I got to the chimney I realised that it was rather narrow and there was no way I could squeeze through it, so traverse off left then up. The conditions were a bit thin and there was no way this was a grade II, furthermore electing to climb with only one axe was not a good idea. We both got in trouble but managed to get through without peeling off. We then came out on a broad snow slope where Mark (there were two Marks) and Mike were pitching it. It looked dead easy but runners were few and far between, so a bit of one uppmanship, "Erol, are you happy soloing this?" I shout down, "Yes", so we just flew up it without putting any runners in. At the top where the arete narrows, we had to wait for a while whilst another party moved off, then dash up with a couple of slings over flakes for protection and the route was in the bag.
There was still plenty of time so we went down and decided to do Boomerang Gully (II), again Alpine style. Off we go, get to a small rib and there's a choice, easy on the left or steep ice on the right. We go right, up a beautiful little ice pitch and find a belay ledge the size of a pool table that someone had laboured to cut out. At this point we hear voices behind and so carry on up the broad snow slope of the main gully without bothering to put runners in. We were going like shit off a shovel and couldn't believe it when this rope of two overtook us. This guy on a stance couldn't believe it either, you should have seen the look on his face when four lunatics came hammering past him solo. I had to stop for a rest, nevertheless we still did a 230 m route in half an hour, how the other two managed to go faster I don't know.

	Monday also dawned nice and sunny, and again the Gore-Tex stayed in the packs all day. This time, we wanted to do something a little harder and plumped for Twisting Gully (III) on Stob Coire Nan Lochan. Unfortunately, despite an Alpine start, queues were forming so we switched to Forked Gully Right Hand (II/III). One team was already on it and another just beat us to the start but they hadn't sorted their ropes out whilst we were ready, all we had to was drop our coils and go. Kindly they let us through. Off I went and suddenly found that gear placements were rather few and far between, about 15 m to the first placement. On upwards, nothing in sight, keep going, "Ah, a (rusty) peg". The instruction book says check all in-situ gear, in practice you say "Thank **** for that", clip it and carry on. Now I have to wait while the other party clear the belay. I thought they were belaying on a peg; Oh no they weren't, they were belaying on a single friend in an iced up crack! Worst still, 10 feet further up were some solid spikes that I chose to belay off. Erol was getting some verbal by now from the others about how slow we were, he was right though, I was stuck behind the first lot. Up comes Erol and he decides to take this short almost vertical ice pitch direct and come up on the wrong side of the belay, I tell him to lead through "I don't intend to do any leading this week" he moans, but I point out we're on the easy summit slopes, there's a couple of good spikes for protection and its just a plod. However, points lost for style as a knee was used hauling over the cornice. We still had plenty of time left so we followed Mark and Mike up Pearly Gates (II/III). Again we were fast and caught them up on the third stance. At this stance they went right and avoided a beautiful steep ice pitch on the left, I decided I was going to go straight up it. Unfortunately, by the time Erol got to the stance, the others were on the easy slopes above, and all their rubbish was being funnelled straight down this pitch, you could hear the whirr of lumps of ice as they sped past. Right hand option it was. One more belay, then run out the entire 50 m of rope with a couple of runners and then move together up the final easy slopes. Another route in the bag. Four now in two days.
Tuesday was a thaw, low clag and a fresh wind. The Anaoch Eagach it was. Having talked to Mark and Andy who soloed most of it we strip the rack down to a minimum: half a set of nuts, a couple of hexes, three slings, no hammers. Off we plod on the slog to the top. Having done it in summer, I knew that you go to the top, then turn left, and follow a broad ridge to the rock step. Unfortunately, we weren't on the true summit when I turned left and so set off on the wrong route, this wasted 40 minutes. Off on the correct route but no sign of Mike and Mark . Get to the step, Erol slips so we decide to ab down. Erol goes down, checks to see that the rope will pull through, it won't. I have to down climb unroped, fortunately, it wasn't as bad as it looked. We soon overtake a rope of 6 and keep going fast. The weather is crap, everything is dripping wet and the view of the inside of the cloud is just like, well, the inside of a cloud. There's just enough ice every now and then to make you keep your crampons on. Since we've got runners, I put a few in on the exposed bits, I've carried them up so I might as well use them. Two short ice pitches provided the only real entertainment all day. We thought we'd been really clever and found the top of the Clachaig Gully in zero visibility. Despite my misgivings, off we go down it. Imagine the surprise when 1000' later, the clag clears and we're heading for the A82, we'd come down two gullies too soon. We followed sloping grass terraces down, hoping that a cliff wasn't going to appear. "There must be an easy way down, there's sheep up here", I say. "Sheep can solo VS!". We do get down all right and I find a big sheep's horn, a massive great thing that would make a fine trophy. Unfortunately, it ponged heavily and I was going to chuck it. Erol said he'd have it, but when he poured this stinking liquid over his gloves he soon binned it. Into the Clachaig for chips and beer, and it wasn't even three o'clock yet. Meet up with the Plas-y-Brenin lot and Martin Chester was pleased as punch that some of his ex-students were out there ice climbing. He was amazed how fast we'd done the Anaoch Eagach and also that we'd been doing two routes a day, we thought that was the norm. Anyway, no sign of Mark and Mike and it turned out that they'd turned back after they got to the true start, they had an easy day in Fort William instead. My recommendation is to save the Anoach Eagach till a good day, I've done it in sun shine and its really great, in the wet, forget it, you just don't appreciate how good it really is.
	Day four, time for something harder but a little easier on the feet. One gondola and chair lift ride later and its only half an hour to the top of Anoach Mor. Good job Mike's been there before else we'd never have found the abseil bollards nor the routes in all the clag. Another good thing, we're ten minutes ahead of the Plas-y-Brenin lot and they want the same routes as us. A few delaying tactics from them (keep you talking whilst they gear up really quick) fail and we get the plum routes, Left Twin (III, *) for me and Erol, Right Twin (II, ) for Mike and Mark. Left Twin was a superb route in first class condition, two really steep ice bulges provide the main interest with the secondary interest being the crap first belay: one hex hammered into a flared crack, a wobbly knife blade and a shallow ice screw. Erol said "I thought you brought me up on a tight rope." In fact I was amazed he got up it at all with his bloody great Alpenstock. Off I go on the next pitch, up the second steep ice fall and past this beautiful ice umbrella, out onto the exit slopes and belay off a bomber thread. I was almost jumping up and down with elation then. The route's as good as done, first grade III lead, and it was a lot harder than the grade II/IIIs we'd done the day before. Erol comes up and leads off out onto the top. My knuckles had taken a real battering, I'd been fighting all the way to get the picks out of neve, and pulling up over bulges with curved picks doesn't feel that secure, so off to the gear shop to buy a pair of technical axes with curved shafts. £220 lighter and I'm the proud owner of a pair of DMM Flys. Erol's now pushing me to lead a grade IV, I'm not keen on this idea at all, although I'd make an exception for The Curtain on The Ben, but it wasn't in condition.

Thursday. Erol wants to lead. Anoach Mor again but this time we get the 8 am climber's gondola so that we can get two routes in. The chair lift's not running so rather than walk to the top and ab in, we traverse round. What a beautiful day, sun shining but cold and crisp. An hour or so later, there's the crag in front and there's the routes. Then the clag descended. We traverse round, the altimeters say we should be on the base of the routes, can't see anything. Eventually we go up, meet a crag and continue left, we'll either get to the routes we did yesterday or the easy gully down. The snow suddenly gets frighteningly steep, I'm not the slightest bit happy so we traverse back and descend some. Off we go again. The clag lifts a touch and we can see a col. Out with the map and compass and we've gone past the climbs by miles. We must have past less than 50m underneath them. Back we go, a brief glimpse through the clag, and we're there. Its now 12:00, despite starting an hour earlier, we're there 3/4 of an hour later than the day before, but strangely, we're the only ones there. A brief debate about the choice of route for Erol's first lead and two other guys turn up, the only ones we saw all day. Erol wanted to lead The Split (III) but there was fresh snow so the routes would be harder and given he'd never placed a peg or ice screw in his life, I persuaded him to do a II instead.
A reluctant Erol agreed to do Right Twin, thinking it was going to be a romp. How wrong he was. Technically, it wasn't much different to Left Twin, perhaps the ice falls weren't quite as steep or quite as long but there was nothing in it. The odd powder avalanche was coming down as Erol set off. I join him on the first stance "What's the belay like?" "Crap." Erol sets off up this 5' wide gully with featureless vertical sides disappearing into the mist. The bed is steep and full of loose powder on top of the neve. A couple of reasonable wires, a bomber hex and up the 2nd icefall he goes. Meanwhile, I'm right in the firing line for all the powder and the ice he's sending down, my lid earns its keep. Erol calls for me to come up and to my surprise I'm panting as I join him on the belay. "Do you want to lead through?". I look up at the steep exit slopes laden with loose powder and the looming cornices, "**** off!" The belay is not the best by a long way, two pegs, one of which is only half in. Its quarter past three, we need to get our arses in gear if we're going to make the last gondola at 5. Erol runs out 30 m of rope with no runners (there wasn't anything) then spends two hours tunnelling through the cornice (and you should have seen the size of the cornice on the left hand exit!). I'm getting bombarded by the stuff he sends down. One big lump of snow hits me in the chest, winds me and knocks me onto the anchors. Its getting dark and it long since ceased to be fun. Eventually, he disappears over the top. Relief. Wait a couple of minutes, the rope comes tight, forget trying to retrieve the pegs, I'll buy some more tomorrow, all I want to do right now is get out of this hell hole.
	Up I go and see the monumental effort Erol put in tunnelling through the cornice. Find Erol's pack in the cornice, chuck that up, then pull out onto the summit plateau into a storm with only the last dregs of twilight remaining. Its -5º and despite us both being plastered in rime ice and spindrift and facing a two hour walk down in the dark we're cock-a-hoop. Out with the cameras, grab a couple of shots, pack frozen ropes and gear away and set off down. Two hours later, only 11½ hours since we set out we meet Mark at the car park. He was concerned and came out to find us. He'd been watching two head torches coming down for the last hour, if they weren't us then mountain rescue were going to go out after us. That night in the pub we were strangely subdued with rather vacant 1000 mile stares. I say to Erol "Want to try a hard route next time?" We've learnt an important lesson, do not under-estimate a Scottish grade II.
Friday dawns clear and sunny but we'd heard the wind and rain in the night. Despite vowing never to go near a mountain in my life ever again, we're gearing up for a grade III buttress on Stob Coire Nan Lochan (the only crag in Glen Coe that was in condition). Off we set, stopping off at the gear shop to buy a couple of pegs. Meet Mark at the car park. "The forecast for 3000' says -5º, 50 mph gusting to 70 mph and blizzard conditions in the snow showers." Off to the climbing wall in Fort William we go. We were trying to figure out if the grades were English or French, the consensus was Scottish (bloody hard). After that, lunch, then back to the chalet to mess about on the ice axe practice wall, which happens to be a pile of railway sleepers. Beer and curry in Fort William that night, then head back home on Saturday. A superb sunny day, not a cloud in the sky and all the tops gleaming white after the dump of snow the day before - and we're going home!
Ps Get those Black Diamond Express ice screws, the ones with the little cranking handle on. They're so easy to place it feels like cheating.
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