The Big Ben and the Wee Buachaille

14-15 January 2012

After the recent thaw, we didn’t have very high hopes for winter climbing, but a forecast for a cold clear weekend, and reports that there was still plenty of ice and snow on Ben Nevis persuaded us that the drive north might be worthwhile.

    

We arrived at the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel very late on Friday evening, and collapsed straight into bed. Less than five hours later we were up again, making an early start to make the most of the short daylight hours. We walked up the Allt a’Mhuilinn path in darkness, with the first glimmers of daylight appearing just as we reached the north face. Although the lower buttresses were black, the rock was rimed higher up and a number of easy gullies and higher routes had retained enough snow and ice to be worthwhile.  We took a look at the Ledge Route and found, to our surprise, that the ledges and gullies in the lower sections had retained plenty of ice due to their sheltered position. Low cloud hung over the hill, but we hoped this would clear as forecasted.

 

 

Although the Ledge Route is reputed to be the best grade II on Ben Nevis, I’d never been up it before (in summer or winter). This omission clearly needed to be rectified.

 

 We stopped for a bite to eat while we put crampons and harnesses on, and then set off up number five gully before branching right onto the Ledge Route. We romped up the easy snows on the lower section, with the rope staying in the pack. The snow was beautiful firm neve, which was fantastic to climb.  The excellent snow conditions continued when we reached the main ridge, which was high enough to have retained a reasonable amount of snow despite its exposed position.

 

    

 

We continued quickly up the ridge, enjoying the exposed position, and were lucky enough to get a glimpse of the Great Tower, at the top of Tower Ridge, when the clag parted briefly for the only time that day.  When we reached the summit of Carn Dearg, we were in a whiteout, so followed bearings to the summit. From the summit, we decided to descend via the Carn Mor Dearg arête, which we had only done in summer conditions before.

 

 

 

 

The promised sunshine still hadn't appeared and with the whiteout persisting it was more compass bearings to get us to the arête, down a steep, hard, icy slope which felt hairier than anything on Ledge Route!

 

 

 

 

Once established on the arête, the going became simpler again, and we scrambled easily along the narrow crest until we reached the summit of Carn Mor Dearg. The arête is given a grade I, but is at the lower end of the grade, albeit long.

 

 

 

 

From Carn Mor Dearg we opted to walk all the way along the ridge to the north, over Carn Dearg Meadhonach and Carn Beag Dearg before dropping back down beneath the cloud and joining the Allt a’Mhuilinn path. We were back at the car before it got dark, knackered but satisfied. 

 

The next day dawned bright and clear and we decided that a shorter day was needed to give our tired legs a rest. Neither of us had walked up Buachaille Etive Beag before, and the translation of its Gaelic name means "the small (wee) herdsman of Etive", so it would be a nice contrast to the big hill the day before!

                  

A good path from Glencoe eased the ascent, although dodging the black ice proved entertaining! After a swift ascent to the col, we headed up towards the first Munro – Stob Coire Raineach, where we were treated to spectacular views of the remainder of our route, the Aonach Eagach and Ben Nevis to the north and the Bidean nam Bian massif to our west.

       

 

We retraced our steps to the col and started up the steep snow slope towards the second Munro – Stob Dubh. The ridge that extended to this peak was a lovely narrow snowy walk, with the views more than compensating for the previous day's murk. Once the second peak had been visited, we swiftly returned to the col for the second time before heading down to Glencoe and driving south.