A trip to Uncle Ben
Mid week the ever keen Jason Wood tapped me up for winter action availability on the coming weekend. A huge part of me wanted to stay at home and boulder/watch rugby so naturally I said I was free and the weather/condition watching began.
The weather was mostly settled during the week and excellent ice climbing conditions were reported. It wasn’t looking too cold on the weekend and the decision was left to the Friday.
Obviously the decision was go as otherwise this would be a rather short and pointless article.
It was looking claggy, freezing level at 1000m with little wind or precipitation. An uneventful drive up got us the already full North face car park for just gone midnight. We found some space further down the road adding 200 odd metres to the walk in. We soon settled down in the boot of Jaz’s C Max with alarms set 5:15.
There was minimal faff in the morning though Jaz’s Jet boil didn’t live it to its name, by 5:45 we began the walk in. There is a new variant to the path which gives a less steep ascent to the guide’s car park, 30 mins to here. The snow cover didn’t begin until the CIC hut so was steady going and the light arrived as we did at the hut. We were treated to a lovely inversion and could actually see the North face of the Ben, a first time experience for me.
We joined the crowd gearing up before heading to our objective the 3 star classic Harrison’s Climb Direct IV on Carn Dearg buttress. Gemini was in poor nick quashing one poor chaps objective(though we heard someone did climb it that day).
We were patting ourselves on the back as we appeared to be the only people heading for Harrisons but alas people took different approaches to ours and we ended up 3rd in the queue. The route looked amazing so we waited it out. The first team was very rapid, the second not so much as the young lady on the sharp end had a mini meltdown and retreated off a screw. Fair play to her she pulled herself together and led the second pitch.
We eventually got going with Jaz on the sharp end as my ice mojo on the downlow due to a few lean seasons and Jaz was fresh back from the Rujkan. A rapid dispatch by Jaz and I followed reacquainting myself to this frozen water climbing malarky. I had an annoying ice screw to deal with which span but wouldn’t screw out! A problem unencountered by me previously but I eventually extracted it and fought my way up the steep section it guarded. The ice was in superb condition the whole away.
The second pitch had a fun looking groove with lots of bridging potential, I now slightly regret keeping Jaz on the sharp end but being on the blunt end allowed me to focus on relearning ice climbing.
I took on the next walking pitch, before sending Jaz up the steeper ice above. Here we deviated from the line taking the last pitch of the rarely formed classic of the Shroud which a team had climbed whilst we were on Harrisons. It was on this pitch I really felt the ice mojo had returned, keeping heels down and the weight on my feet. Jaz found this pitch the hardest but I thought the first was the pumpiest.
We both thought we were near the plateau now but this proved to be naïve. We now quested up and leftwards alternating leads following others tracks on I/II terrain looking for the line of least resistance. I found a lengthy traverse and quite exposed traverse on soft snow causing my crampons to start balling up testing my patience.
The traverse led us on to the classic mountaineering trip Ledge Route. We switched to the text book system of moving together with 60m of rope out! This further tested patience as I was second and the rope continually got caught on sastrugi, an almighty ball ache flicking it out constantly aided by the odd hissy fit as fatigue kicked in with limited food or drink since the car park.
We eventually reached the plateau in whiteout conditions. A quick de gear and some refreshment (with hindsight should of eaten more) and we decided to head down to the halfway Lochan rather than try and locate Number 4 gully. After briefly walking in what we assumed was the right direction we made to the call to actually navigate and then went in the right direction.
The descent to the lochan turned out to be more arduous than expected or wanted as the slope was 40 degree of tough neve. So front pointing and daggering was required. Whilst descending I just used the one axe which with hindsight was an absurd decision as would of moved much faster with both tools. Night fell as we descended me with body craving calories and mind craving easier terrain so concentration could safely drop. It felt like I front pointed down approximately 3 billion metres (it was probably less in reality).
Down to the lochan crampons could be removed, a snickers bar was enjoyed but the bone crunching slog down to the guides car park was not. We returned to the car at 8pm a mere 14 hour day and possibly my hardest (though not longest) day on the hills, I was broken. We hit Morrisons for some supplies and then struggled to find more luxurious accommodation than a boot. We eventually got lucky and found space at Glen Nevis youth hostel. A great relief, even more relieving was the poor forecast the next day meaning a lie in and no climbing.
Unfortunately we did have to suffer the hostel guest demographic in which bright young European backpackers far outnumbered bearded mountaineers wittering on about conditions. We endured this with good spirits.
