Petestack Blog

While it’s no longer close to the monstrous undertaking that foiled many leading climbers prior to its controversial first ascent in 1959, Point Five Gully (V,5) on Ben Nevis remains one of the most prized winter climbs for the recreational mountaineer, described in Colin Stead’s Cold Climbs essay as ‘probably the most famous ice gully in Scotland, perhaps in the world’ and more concisely in the relevant SMC guidebooks as ‘[probably] the most famous ice gully in the world!’ (The 2002 Ben Nevis guide omits the ‘probably’.) It was also the ‘most wanted’ climb for both Johnny MacLeod and me, with both of us having been to do it before and turned back (several times in Johnny’s case) for reasons of queues (yes, queues!) or conditions. Although perhaps I should add that my retreat from the base of a soggy Point Five with Jamie Hageman last April now seems an even wiser decision than it did at the time when I’d probably have been attempting to lead the whole thing before I was properly ready for it. But yesterday was different…

Despite a slight thaw setting in, the route had been described as ‘fat’ by everyone who’d been on or near it and we knew it should be holding up well with the freezing level forecast somewhere round about its base. So we had to get out early and settled on a 4:30am meeting (I’d have gone earlier!) at the North Face Car Park, which saw me up at 3:00am and out of the house by 3:35am. And even that was barely enough, with the Minus and Orion Faces already busy as we turned up Observatory Gully some time before 7:00am, but luckily had the good fortune to overtake the sole Point Five-bound team ahead of us (who stopped to gear up later on more awkward ground) and find ourselves first on the route. And then we just climbed it (the whole 325m) in five long, long pitches (two of which we had to stretch a little), taking the steep initial sections in the first two and leading through. So Johnny got up to and including the chimney (above which he found the only visible in-situ gear of the day) and I got the stunning Rogue Pitch, then another easier pitch for each of us (although Johnny’s had quite a long, steepish step and mine a shorter one) before a long, long ‘ropelength’ saw Johnny over the cornice and walking towards the summit shelter, which he reached just as I came over the top! It was 12:15pm, four-and-a-quarter hours since he’d started up the first pitch, and we’d long since lost sight of any of the following parties (of which there were apparently now several).

So that was that, we’d got what we’d come for and have to say we weren’t disappointed (it’s a beautiful climb). Possibly easier then The Wand (my only previous Grade V), but perhaps that’s more to do with the confidence gained from that experience… or my new Vipers and Terminators (now set up as offset monos), which all performed impeccably (discovered there’s no great mystery to monopoint crampons, which I’d never tried before). It was certainly very steep in places, but all there… and never caused the jitters that marked the start of my lead pitch on The Wand although I’d still admit to a mild (but satisfied) sense of relief in pulling over the top of the Rogue Pitch. To which I can only add that we found little obvious rock gear with the gully walls well iced up (but accept that it must be there if you know where to look), experienced some of the famous Point Five spindrift and finished with just about everything (not just the soft gear like ropes, slings and rucksack straps!) absolutely caked in ice to a degree I’ve never experienced on any other climb. After which we dived into the summit shelter (which I’m not sure I’ve ever been inside before) for lunch before locating the top of Number Four Gully (which I’d never been down before either, but we found in very straightforward condition) for a quick descent back to the Allt a’ Mhuilinn.

And that’s it. We climbed Point Five in stonking conditions, I got to use those new tools at last, got my second V of the season (so satisfying, without diminishing the impact of the first, to know that it wasn’t a flash in the pan) and find myself able to look forward to anything else this ‘winter’ as a bonus. So I’m still hoping for some more action before hanging up my axes and crampons for the summer, and thinking about some more winter walking with next year’s WML Assessment in mind (Cairngorms at least should still be good for that at Easter), but this was the big one! :-)

Today Jamie B and I headed to the North-East Corrie of Beinn an Dothaidh in search of some sensible mixed climbing in conditions where serious avalanche risk following this week’s dumps of snow over surface hoar still ruled out many of the more ‘traditional’ venues. And it soon became obvious on our approach to The Skraeling (IV,5) that scoured slopes and deep deposits of snow were vying for supremacy on a very localised basis…

Soloing up the initial pitches of Grade IIish ground to get the meat of the climb, we were slightly surprised to spy a party of three below us apparently heading for the gully of Taxus (III), but lost sight of them as we belayed below the ‘obvious roof’ and Jamie set about the first pitch proper. Which seemed to be going smoothly at first before grinding to a long halt and leading to his reappearance abseiling over the initial wall an hour-and-a-half later, by which time I was pretty well as cold as I was curious! Hard to say exactly what he found up there when I couldn’t see it and we were unable to communicate for most of that time, but I’m thinking he told me that the buttress was in surprisingly lean condition and his attempts to reach the corner above consequently foundered on unexpectedly committing ground. At which point, with me needing warming up and the climb gone, we simply coiled the ropes and beat it out of there, noting as we descended that the trio seen earlier had already negotiated the main body of Taxus in good time and were now engaged on the Icefall Finish.

And that’s about that, except to say that it’s been an expensive day with one of my pegs and one of Jamie’s wires sacrified to facilitate his safe return and a pair of mixed picks now also ordered for the Vipers I reluctantly left at home rather than start trashing their beautiful icefall picks on rock first time out! So I used neither the Vipers nor the Terminators (similarly left for the good of their ice points and uncertainty about those controversial mixed points) today, but obviously hope to get them all going soon.

Long before I ever saw myself climbing Grade Vs (when I was climbing before, didn’t go out so much in winter and was basically walking or soloing Is and IIs when I did), SC Gully on Stob Coire nan Lochan was probably close to the summit of my realistic winter aspirations as a classic Grade III line of dramatic appearance and unimpeachable integrity (a straight, deep cleft between two buttresses). So, when Matt managed to tempt me into a day out on a half-term Friday (yesterday) when I had much else to be getting on with, that was the climb (still missing from my ‘CV’) that I most wanted to do. And we found it in superb condition, waiting for one team who got there before us but overtaking another two on the walk-in…

Looking at Matt’s photo of the whole climb below (note also the figure in yellow to the right of the two climbers in the gully on the Grade VII Central Grooves!), there’s much straightforward snow climbing with the two main areas of difficulty being an initial ice pitch up the first narrows to the right of the tapering buttress at the bottom and the moves right (the guidebook crux) to the next icefall about halfway up. So I led in two pitches up to and beyond the crux (which I did offer to Matt) before turning over the lead for a final snow pitch, finding the crux traverse a delightful little mixed sequence (apparently it varies a lot!) and the first ice pitch possibly harder on the day. With a nice slot already cut through the cornice and sunshine to greet us on top, it really was a chance well taken to enjoy this lovely, classic route that I’ve waited so long to do.

Teams also out on Twisting Gully (Guy & Gordon, Sean & Paul), Moonshadow, East Face Route and Central Grooves, and considerably more cornicing than when we did Twisting three weeks ago (the summit pyramid of Stob Coire nan Lochan also looks absolutely laden in places). Happy that I’m able to access and stow my ice screws comfortably at last with my new Ice Flutes working well (just need to fine tune my method of attaching them to my double bandolier now), and at the point of ordering a pair of Vipers after trying Matt’s on the way down. Also went to see Andy Kirkpatrick at the Fort William Mountain Festival in the evening, and have to say the guy’s very, very funny!

So here I was yesterday, starting up this Grade V ice pitch, close to fulfilling a cherished dream and possibly somewhere well along the scale from quite excited to ******* terrified… but just how did I come to find myself at the sharp end on The Wand (V,5) on Creag Meagaidh?

Well, it’s got to be largely serendipity in this case because I wasn’t even thinking about trying to arrange a climb when I dropped into The Ice Factor (as I often do) on my way home from an evening run last week. But Dan had been up Organ Pipe Wall on Ben Udlaidh that day, I asked the grade, got told V,5 and mentioned that I’d never done a V yet but intended to get my first soon. At which point Jamie B chirped in with ‘no prizes for guessing which one’, I replied that, sure, I’d been talking about a couple on the Ben (Point Five and Indicator Wall) but was now also considering the likes of South Post Direct and The Pumpkin on Creag Meagaidh… and Jamie came straight out with ‘do you want to do one of them this Sunday?’

So that was that, and we were off first thing Sunday, but even our 5:00am departure from Kinlochleven and 6:30am walk-in wasn’t enough to beat the queue for The Pumpkin, so what next? Having already gained the Inner Corrie, South Post Direct was no longer so convenient, and Diadem’s been downgraded to IV in the 2008 Scottish Winter Climbs, so The Wand was the obvious choice and we soloed up the start of The Sash to get to it in company with a Diadem-bound, fellow Pumpkin-thwarted pair who’d already done it the previous day.

Now, The Wand starts with an impressive icefall described as varying in height between 45m and 60m, and certainly at the upper end of that yesterday (although sporting altogether more modest umbrellas than the spectacular crop shown in the Scottish Winter Climbs cover photo of Blair Fyffe on the route). So we split this in two, Jamie led off and I arrived to join him at the cave belay with an attack of full-blown hot aches of the briefly dizzy/queasy kind. At which point I had the option of leading through or getting him to rearrange the belay for me, chose the former in the belief that the ground above didn’t look quite as steep as what we’d just come up, but very quickly discovered that it was! So I had one early wobbly moment when I thought I was letting go of both axes and about to come off, but a combination of Jamie’s repeated reminders to shake out (it works!) and my survival instinct (simply can’t fall here…) saw me back in control and I think I led the remainder of the pitch in reasonable style. Except that I arrived at the belay believing myself to be out of screws and spent ages digging for non-existent rock gear before placing a peg, threading an icicle and finally discovering two more screws on an inaccessible clipper (things that have been almost nothing but trouble to me!) way round towards my back. After which there remained another, somewhat easier ice pitch (which Jamie led) and a straightforward snow pitch (mine) to the plateau, followed by a tortuous descent to the Window in the mother of all whiteouts.

So that was that and I’m still half-dazed by the realisation that I’ve not just been on Grade V ice for the first time but led it as well. Which doesn’t mean that I’m about to start indiscriminately launching myself at every V in the book, but does give me the confidence to believe I can do it again, retain my composure in the knowledge that I survived the first, and add some extra ‘headroom’ for those IIIs and IVs. As for those ice clippers, I’m afraid that, with some mysterious loss-through-spontaneous-unclipping incidents and difficulty arranging them in positions I find both accessible (which they have to be) and secure, they just haven’t worked out for me so far. But that’s alright because the Petzl Ice Flutes I’d already ordered (and should be able to arrange quite nicely on my double bandolier) arrived today and can get a whirl next time out. If I tell you that I’m also suddenly finding myself close to ordering a new pair of axes when I swore to stick by my modified Flys for a while longer, it’s Jamie who’s been tempting me there… but I’m thinking I’ll have to let him off if I do take the plunge for this milestone climb that I didn’t expect to get quite when I did! :-)