Scottish Winter? ....Hardly!

Brad and I arrived home last night after a fantastic week scaling snow and ice in Scotland. It was hardly a Scottish winter though, more like summer in the Alps! But conditions were perfect. Freezing levels were down low all but the last couple of days, and the snow and ice were in excellent nick!

The North Face of Ben Nevis

Day one we started off with an early rise (4am) and a walk up to the Ben's North Face. Our route was Ledge Route, a grade II climb with great views. We started up gully number five then turned right to begin the climb. Roughly 50m of steep now and ice took you to col where the ridge began properly, weaving its way to the summit with the odd narrow section.

Looking back down Ledge Route

After we'd had a refreshment at the top, we made a foolish mistake of climbing back down gully number five. Only a grade I climb, but what we didin't realise - it was 500m long! Our hopes of steps being all the way down were dashed too, but after three hours we made it down. Never again!

Slowly making our way down Number Five Gully

Day two we made our way up to Stob Corrie Nan Lochan to climb Dorsal Arete (II), another three star classic. After climbing the initial snow slope we made it to the bottom of the buttress and roped up. We swung leads all the way to the top, where it finished with an excellent ice pitch and a fantastic view coming over the cornice.

Dorsal Arete just left of centre

The third way we took a rest as our feet were feeling a bit battered with the long walk ins and heavy packs. So we took a walk up Glen Nevis past Steall Falls and up the valley. Playing on boulders as we went. We then did a little climbing on the Polldubh crags. I had a go at Severe Crack (VS 4c), despite getting two thirds of the way up, I had issue committing to the crux move. Not that I couldn't do it, more just didin't want to ;)

Steall Falls

Another easyish day climbing on the cascade ice near the CIC hut on the Ben, and practising our buried axe belays and snow bollards - which worked very well!

CIC ice falls

Day five we headed over to Bauchaille Etive Mor to climb Curved Ridge (III). The temperatures had warmed up, and things were beginning to melt. We reached the initial pitch which was grade III ice. Brad led his way up and I followed, swinging leads for three pitches. The snow condition was poor and the ice pitch had been a little rotten as well, making us feel a little twitchy. So we descended back down and decided to leave it. In hind sight we should have just gone for it, and we were a little disappointed looking back now. But some things you learn from experience, and we fight to live another day!

Retreating down the ice pitch

Our last day we decided to tackle Gardyloo Gully (III) on The Ben. Approach is up Observatory Gully which is a long sweeping gully which rise for about 300m (ish). After reaching Gardyloo Gully we changed our mind, as the upper buttress was being hit by the sun, and we'd already had melting ice rain down on us from Tower Ridge. So we traversed rightwards to tackle Tower Gully (I). An easy grade, but the snow was heavily banked out and it felt more like a grade II, especially with the 300m of Observatory Gully below our feet. We decided to solo up the gully, as the snow was really hard and it would take us ages to build belays and rope up. After a fair bit up step kicking we negotiated the cornice and topped out to a perfect Ben Nevis summit. We quickly topped up our Winter tans and headed down number four gully, which ended a smashing week!

Climbing towards the sun

Ben Nevis summit

All the photos from the week can be seen here.
Enjoy!