Scottish ice climbing 2002

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Tales from the club ice climbing trip to Glen Coe in 2002.  We climbed Tunnel Vision on the East face of Anaoch Mor before the weather turned for the worst.  We also had a go at Curved Ridge on Buchaille Etive Mor.  Here's the story.
Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest…Fort William, February 2002
The trip started as a bit of a disaster. Nick and Richard hadn’t done any winter stuff so they booked an instructor in Aviemore for two days before joining us in Fort William. The only problem was the b****** could make more money instructing a group of kids so he double booked and only told Nick and Richard a week before. A few hasty phone calls failed to get another instructor so they went up to Fort William anyway and headed out onto the Ben to practice stuff on their own, complete with Fyffe and Peters’ “Climbing Handbook”. The up shot of this is that the quickest way to the CIC hut is to park in the upper car park in Glen Nevis, not slog up the Allt A Mhuillin.
Sunday was forecast OK so we decided on an easy day to start with and got the 8:00 climber’s gondola and chair lift, leaving only a 20 minute walk to the top of Anaoch Mor. I teamed with Nick, Erol with Richard, Mark with Leggy, Chad with Mark Slack. The first problem was the cornice on the top of Easy Gully. Mark uncoiled a rope, I hacked out a snow bollard and I abseiled off into the gloom. Two other guys arrived, then bum slid off down the gully. Nick arrived so time to head off to the climbs. “If they can do it, so can I” I thought as I started off a bum slide, using the axe to control my speed of decent. Well that was the theory, except that I kept accelerating and despite converting a bum slide into a full blown self arrest, I kept accelerating. To hell with the instruction book, dig the feet in, gently so I don’t flip, and I come to a halt about a rope length down the gully. “Nick, don’t bum slide!”. There was a lot of unconsolidated snow but it was well bonded and safe, the ice was a different matter, the buttresses were well plastered but it was rotten and water was running underneath it. We’d do Tunnel Vision but call it a day after that, it wasn’t looking good for White Shark in the afternoon. No problem finding the climb and I’d got a solid belay ready for when Nick arrived. Uncoil the ropes, tie on and go, don’t give him a chance to get nervous on his first ever winter climb.
I blaze up the first pitch which is just a steep snow plod, not the ice pitch it was a month ago. I belayed on a really solid peg and then watched as my belay plate tumbled down the gulley. Nick saw this, then wondered what he was belayed to when I shouted for him to climb – friction hitches. He gets up to peg placement, then has to borrow a hammer off Mark who was leading behind him to extract it, ‘cos he had two axes and no hammer. Because of the ice conditions and it’s Nick’s first climb, I change plan and go for the slightly easier right hand exit, rather than the grade 4 left hand option. I get a reasonable ice screw in straight away, then traverse right and up this 70-80º snow-ice gully. After 10 m I manage to get a superb bridge, and completely in balance, put in a really crap ice screw – the ice is just that little bit too soft.
The angle eases slightly, then steepens again. I have to take weight on the picks to ease my screaming calf muscles. The gully just keeps going on and on. Just before it terminates in the exit slopes I get another crap ice screw in and then enter the snow bowl. I realise that I haven’t got enough rope to get out and I’m going to have to belay, the only problem is were’re on a 50+º snow slope and there’s nothing. Time to learn how to place the deadman I bought 5 days ago. The instructions go on about using an axe to measure the slope, then placing it at 40º to the slope. Fine on easy angled ground but impossible when it’s above head height. Anyway, hammer it in, and back it up with two vertical axes, all equalised nicely. Time to bring Nick up. The sun has now broken out and it’s quite pleasant on the stance. I look across and see two guys on the left hand side wall, the leader’s belayed off the picks of two axes, and I thought my belay was bad. There’s the sound of huffing and puffing from below, which means Nick isn’t enjoying himself. The whole hillside reverberates to the thunk, thunk, thunk as Nick kicks in his feet. Ever so slowly the rope gradually moves upwards. I can just see his bright red lid come into view when all of a sudden “WHOOMPH”. I look across and watch in horror as the cornice over the left hand exit collapses right on top of these two guys. Fortunately for them, it hits a rock rib above them and bounces over them, right into the gully we’d just come up. There’s another whoomph over from the Twins area. Oh shit, the sun is collapsing the cornices. Fortunately, we’ve only got a baby cornice above us, so personally I’m not too worried, however, I haven’t the faintest idea what the others are doing. Nick gets up to me and clips in. I pull the ropes through and tell Nick to give me his axes. “Why?” “’Cos I’ve used mine for the belay, so I’ve got to use yours, then you use mine.” Off I go on the final 10 m out over the top. The snow is noticeably softer now. The cornice isn’t too bad at all, about 3-4’ of vertical snow, but its unconsolidated rubbish. I have to commit to a foothold as Nick’s useless walking axes won’t give any purchase, step up and I’m on the top. Meanwhile, Nick’s ****ing bricks when reality dawns about the belay, if I fall off it’s curtains for both of us. Now the complicated bit. All at the same time I have to set up a belay (on the fence posts at the top); direct a rescue over on the left hand exit where the guy who’s just had a cornice go over the top of him is now in really deep trouble under the remains of it and is shouting for a top rope; and tell Nick to untie from the gold rope and pass it to Mark, who also wants a top rope. Nick doesn’t really want to hand over a rope, but Mark’s saying “Gimmee, gimmeee, gimmee”. Nick pops out over the top followed by Leggy. I watch two picks on the left hand exit finally pop out onto the top, then disappear as the guy falls off, bloody good job he’d got a top rope. Mark and Leggy then chat up these French girls and in 5 minutes have blagged a lift back to Glasgow. The guy on the left exit is now safe, has belayed himself, crawled out onto the edge of the cornice and is furiously clicking away with his camera down a route he’s not going to forget for a long time.
Given the state of the cornices, we call it a day and head off along the cliff tops back to the gondola, no sign of Erol, Richard, Chad or Slack. We hear that Left Twin has avalanched twice, hope they’re not doing that one.
		Several cups of tea later Chad and Slack arrive. They’d had an epic on Right Twin. First of all they had lunch, then Slack lobbed off on the first pitch but the ice screw held. Chad was then designated to lead and went up the buttress to the right, below Erol and Richard. Erol and Richard thought they were on The Slever, but were in fact putting up a new route on the right hand edge of Right Twin. Cornices came down either side of them and the one that went down Right Twin missed Slack by 2’. Unsurprisingly he called it a day and Erol had to lower Chad off. Depending on who you speak to (Chad or Erol), this lost them either 20 minutes or an hour. Anyway, its dark, the gondola’s long since packed up and me and Leggy are watching two sets of head torches coming down in the dark. I ask Leggy what’s morse code for “wankers” ‘cos Erol’s last winter climb was on Right Twin, and we came down in the dark then. It transpires that a top rope was offered to Erol on the cornice this time round which was gratefully accepted. We hear that one of the next pair up Right Twin had taken a 150’ fall, he was OK but ended up in hospital when the puncture wound in his leg got infected.
So, what a first day!!!!
The next morning, we’re chucking gear in the car and ask Slack what he’s up to “Easy day today.” We fall about laughing, the days don’t come much easier than gondolas up and down Anaoch Mor. We arrived in Glen Coe at the wrong time. The weather was truly appalling, horizontal rain. Given both bad weather and avalanche forecasts we head off to the Glen Coe ski centre, although I suspect that if we hadn’t got to the car park in a squall, we’d have started out. We persuade Richard not to ski so that we can all have a boarding lesson together. We knock on the instructors’ shed window. They’re all in there in the warm and dry drinking tea. “Any chance of a boarding lesson for four?” “What standard?” “None of us have ever been on a board before” “I can do it, but do you know what the conditions are like up there?” (the guy’s obviously not keen) “Yeah, we were going climbing but the weather’s so bad we decided to give it a miss and try boarding instead.” The guy’s thinking “nutters”. “Go and get a cup of tea and I’ll sort something out” We have tea, its about 9:30. The guy comes over. “OK, I’ve got some pre-booked lessons first, I can give you a two hour lesson but not untill 1:00”. Clearly he’s trying to put us off. “Yeah, OK, we’ll go for it, we’ll go skiing for a couple of hours first though.” “That might work out expensive with all the lift passes and kit hire. One option is to get some boards and go up and try it out on your own for a couple of hours” (whilst thinking “they haven’t a clue what to do so they’ll clear off out of here rather than hang around and I can go back to a warm hut and a cup of tea”). “Yeah, we’ll do that then”. Groan. “OK, get your gear on and I’ll sort out the kit you’ll need” Five minutes later, whilst we’re getting ready, he comes over and gleefully tells us that they’re shutting the whole resort down due to high winds. After a few handbrake turns in the car park, we head off to Nevis Range to see if they’re open, stopping off at the cottage first to sort gear and so Richard can pick up his ski boots. On we go to Nevis Range and get lift passes and ski and boot hire for £30. Richard has to hire boots ‘cos he left his in the cottage. Bargain of the week though, Nick who’s never skied before, gets an all in two hour instruction package for £27. This turns into a 1:1 lesson when the only other beginner couldn’t get the hang of it and jacked it all in after an hour. The summit runs were shut due to the winds, but the Goose run was open. Despite not being able to see anything in the white out, the skiing was really good in the top half with loads of fresh powder, but the bottom half was a touch thin and narrow with rocks, snow and streams poking through. Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves immensely, all except Erol that is who’s enjoyment was spoiled when he skied into a block of ice on the piste and stopped dead. In the Grog and Gruel later, we invent a tall story about the route we did. Nick has hired an ice hammer so the story is embellished by finding an ice axe on the route complete with glove still attached. The others fall for it hook line and sinker.
The next day (Tuesday) the avalanche forecast is still horrendous, we go to Stob Coire Nan Lochan, the others do Curved Ridge on Buchaille Etive Mor. The snow gullies in Stob Coire Nan Lochan are really dangerous, there’s a 8” think layer of weakly bonded slab on top of the snow pack, it only takes a little persuasion to let go, and that’s on a gentle slope. Unfortunately, there’s no ice on the buttresses so they’re out. We make up a route to the left of Boomerang. The first pitch is the hardest, not even the turf is frozen. Nick doesn’t like it at all. Even after the next two easy pitches he’s still not happy so I lower him off into Boomerag with the instructions to stay right next to the buttress on the way down. I then ab down and see a set of footprints in the middle of the gully going through avalanche debris. Meanwhile, Richard and Erol continue on the route, which is Richard’s first lead. Me and Nick mess about with axe belays and deadman placements. Its amazing how solid they can be. Both of us together couldn’t budge a buried T-axe belay. Hoots of laughter when an incorrect deadman placement popped and Nick tumbled off backwards down the slope. That little exercise gave us confidence in snow anchors.
	The next day is a rest day for all except me and Erol. Again, given the conditions a ridge route is the only option so we have a go at Curved Ridge, we just make it up out of Glen Coe as there’s a liberal dusting of snow on the road. Off we set, with the clag lifting as we go leaving us in cold sunshine with stunning views across Rannoch Moor and the White Corries. We gear up where we have to do a rising traverse over a stream, then flog up a gully through deep snow and we’re at the start of the ridge proper. The two in front are taking the ice fall in Easy Gully direct, I go up the ridge. This is easier said than done. Its like rock climbing blind fold. Every single hand and foot hold has to be uncovered from beneath 4” of wet unconsolidated snow. Ice axes are useless. After a 5a balancey  rock over I’m not so sure about this. I suddenly get two solid runners in then try and traverse round a corner into the top of Easy Gully. Even with tension on the rope I can’t do it so I admit defeat and lower off. Meanwhile, the ice fall on Easy Gully has degenerated into a waterfall. Erol has a go, and gets up into Easy Gully. We’re seriously slow and the rest of the route is the same rubbish condition as the start. Two guided teams back off as the route is clearly not in condition. I start up Easy Gully and promptly fall off. I ask Erol to lower me down. He’s not the slightest bit happy about binning the route. I feel guilty. I ab down a gully and across the dodgy traverse, losing a crampon in the process. The rope won’t pull through so I shout up to Erol to use abseil tat round the block and put the rope through it. He doesn’t hear and gets half way down the gully with my crampon before going back up again to sort out the anchor. Down he comes and this time the rope pulls through easily. We pack up and head down, but by now the weather has deteriorated and its blowing a hoollie. The stream on the Waterslide is going upwards, and large lumps of snow are flying about in the wind. Its hard to stand upright. Afterwards we trundle off to the Kings House for beer and soup. The deer by the car park are friendly and Erol feeds one a cheese sandwich out of his hand. Back at the ranch, the others can’t believe how the conditions changed in one day, they walked up the bit where we struggled. We tell Chad and Slack to forget any ideas about doing North Buttress, the wind had stripped every ounce of snow off it.
Thursday is truly appalling, rain and strong winds all day, combined with a **** poor avalanche forecast. Just as we’re chucking ski kit into the car we hear on the radio that the uplifts are shut because of the wind. We spend the morning in the cottage practicing knots and hoists. Full marks to Erol for figuring out how to convert a friction hitch to a clove hitch, in situ, without taking a hand off the dead rope or a loop out of the knot. Then its off to Fort William swimming pool ‘cos the wall is shut for rebuilding.
Friday. Me and Richard decide we’re going to do a route regardless of the weather. This changes when we get out of the car in Glen Coe. The wind’s that strong its rocking the car. We go for a walk instead up a 2000’ pimple overlooking Loch Linnhie. Little did we know at the time that Nick and Erol were doing the same pimple. It was a good day, sunshine then hail squalls, fortunately the wind was behind us going up and we were sheltered going down. We enjoyed it immensely, the views were great, the packs were light, the mountaineering boots were in the cottage, but boy, did those hail stones sting my face. We hear that the wind speed was 124 mph on Cairn Gorm. Even where we were, it was patently obvious that it was impossible to climb.
So, a bit grim really, 2 routes in six days. Last year it was 7 in 6.
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