Petestack Blog

Today I climbed Italian Right-Hand (IV,4) on Ben Nevis with Stephan Mors. While we’d been hoping that Harrison’s Climb Direct (same grade) on Carn Dearg might be in, what we could see of it looked quite bare and unformed as we walked past so the search for another route was on. And Italian Right-Hand proved to be a good choice on the day with its north-westerly aspect being diametrically opposed to the wide south-easterly danger zone suggested by the SAIS Lochaber forecast and not too much cruddy snow to contend with when the Italian Climb area is also noted for avalanche danger in some conditions. Be warned, however, that it’s much longer than the guidebook 150m if followed (as it should be) to the crest of Tower Ridge, and we took six pitches of alternating leads (of which at least three were 55m+) to reach the top. So I got the first and Stephan got the big Right-Hand pitch, but there was something of interest on every pitch amongst much easier ground and quite a spicy mixed finish by the route we took up the last section to the crest. After which we descended Tower Ridge rather than finish upwards, but found this really quite time-consuming under surprisingly heavy snow cover.

Dunno what was done elsewhere on the Ben, but Vanishing Gully, Italian Climb (normal route), Garadh Gully and Glover’s Chimney certainly all saw ascents.

PS (2 February)… just got some photos from Stephan to augment my solitary shot (not uploaded before), so here we go. Nothing too dramatic because most of the best action shots weren’t options when safeguarding the other climber, dodging spindrift or both, but you can see me topping out from the RH pitch and leading higher up towards the ridge (think the ‘book’ route goes left there, but I chose the steeper, less heavily-laden slopes) and the pair of us preparing to abseil from the last level section of Tower Ridge towards Observatory Gully in snowly [sic.] deteriorating visibility.

When Isi texted me yesterday (while I was out running to the Dam) to ask if I fancied a climb today ‘before all this lovely ice disappears’, the first routes that crossed my mind were The Posse and What’s the Story above Caolasnacon (scene of last Sunday’s misdirected search for ice in the wrong place). So that’s where we went today, although we only had time for the one route in the end…

Now, The Posse (IV, John Grieve 1971) and What’s the Story (III/IV, Davy Gunn 2001) are two cracking looking, accessible, low-level icefall routes, although friends who’ve done both this week say the gradings are probably the wrong way round. On which note, I’d agree that the bulging third pitch crux of The Posse, despite being briefly quite steep and exciting above the great sweep of ice below, is basically all there and pretty soft for IV.

While I’d hoped to get Isi leading one of the earlier pitches, she managed to persuade me to take the whole of the lower sweep (in two long II/III pitches) as well as the steeper crux (which, as Al Halewood has observed on his blog, really is a ‘wee treat’). But revenge was at hand, because there was a nice 40m Grade II pitch (not really described in the guide) above that to finish things off tidily, so I sent her up that and she made a nice job of leading it.

Might just add that these Caolasnacon routes are very worthwhile (genuinely comparable in scale to An Steall Ban) and I’m happy to admit to defecting to the (leashless!) ‘dark side’ after taking off my clippers and climbing today with my new Black Diamond Spinners. :-)

With thanks to Isi for the photo of me on the crux pitch and a great day out!

See also Davy Gunn’s comment of 9 February.

This afternoon I took a wander up the frozen watercourse spilling from Coire an t-Sionnaich (high on the N flank of Garbh Bheinn) to the bridge above the viaduct at the south-west corner of Kinlochleven. While this is unnamed even on the OS and Harvey 1:25,000 maps, I’d take a fair guess at Allt Coire an t-Sionnaich, but please don’t quote me on that in case I’m wrong!

Anyway, it’s evidently been proving quite popular this week with true roadside ice climbing (barely out of the village!) in its lower reaches, and I know of at least four other parties on it today with Chuck and Dan (soloing), Magnus and Fiona (roped) and another pair up there at various times this morning and a roped pair ahead of me this afternoon who left it to descend after the first few pitches just before I caught them. Don’t think anyone else had been as high as me, though, because there was no evidence of earlier traffic in my final section.

It starts with several entertaining short Grade II (ish) pitches with steps of III and a more substantial one that’s definitely III (Magnus thinks maybe IV, but you can make your own armchair judgements from ‘ice3’ photo below!) before a long, fairly level section leads to some more fun. Above this (and above where the pair ahead of me stopped) is an obvious fork where I believe Chuck and Dan went left, so I went right (‘fork’ photo), then some more short pitches and level stuff with potential for wet feet before an obvious kind of deep cauldron with two steep, icy possibilities in a spectacular-looking cascade of icicles in the back left corner and a slightly shorter right wall. Now the light was starting to go and the left cascade looked quite meaty, so I took the right wall (foreground of ‘cauldron’ photo), found myself totally committed to a kind of steep mixed groove thing with poor hooks, no footholds and no frozen turf where the ice started to run out, and have to say that felt harder and more insecure than anything I’ve led (making it at least IV). Think everything starts to lie back above that into a shallower scoop leading up to the ridge, but can’t be sure because it was time to turn back for the road in the fading light (best descent probably down the faint ridge on the east bank, which I followed after starting down the west side and crossing). Looking at the photos tonight I’m wondering whether there might actually have been an easier/safer line snaking its way up the left side of the cascade at the back of the cauldron, but who knows? However, you don’t have to do the cauldron or even go that far, and the bottom few pitches (up to and including the good Grade III one) before the first level section would make a great little roadside outing on their own.

Might just be worth adding that I climbed the whole route with my modified DMM Flys in full leashless mode, felt comfortable with that and enjoyed it.

[Footnote, 28 November 2010… descended Coire an t-Sionnaich today, noting two more major icefalls above the ‘cauldron’ and being horrified by the appearance of my right-wall ‘escape’ from this (really not soloing ground at all)! So now seeing the whole expedition as something rather more substantial with the best bits (thinking rope, screws and partner here!) at the top.]

This evening I climbed An Steall Ban (more commonly, but quite incorrectly, known as Steall Falls) with Chuck. And, while this stunning (but rarely frozen) 120m Grade III cascade has been both climbable and popular for the past five days or so, it’s looking like we might have got to it just in time. There’s a great big gash right down the middle and bits falling off, but we were still able to climb the full height just left of said gash with one fairly creaky section. Four pitches all told, with the first and third (which started with the creaky traverse) falling to me, the second and fourth to Chuck, and all but my slightly rusty first pitch lead (my first time out this winter!) completed by torchlight. The climbing’s really quite amenable, but you wouldn’t want to be on any of those great chunks of ice when they come crashing down! So perhaps a good overnight freeze will help to keep it hanging on but it wasn’t cold up there when we left, although the road beyond Scimitar Buttress is still pretty well impassable to all but 4x4s and we had to leave the van (which turns out to be rubbish on packed snow or ice) on the way up and walk.

Afraid I also lost an ice screw, but not by dropping. So I’ve discovered I’ve got a problem with the handles of my Grivel Helixes catching on something and twisting themselves out of my BD clippers, was lucky not to lose some more and need to work out why this has been happening because screws taking themselves off my harness when I’m not looking is not something I can put up with! :-/

Sorry no photos because (although we took a camera) the combination of darkness and the damp that came with the start of the fresh snow wasn’t just that conducive to photography when climbing the thing quickly and getting off were higher priorities.