More Winter Fun in Lochaber

Chris Looking All Winter-Like and Brave!

Chris was looking for a short ‘winter adventure’ to get away from the flatlands of Suffolk.  This very snowy Scottish winter of 2014 duly obliged!

Aonach Mor

Day 1 saw us hopping on the Nevis Range gondola and Quad chairlift to get high up the mountain quickly and make the most of the snow.  Whilst the near-absence of wind made for relatively comfortable conditions (for a change), thick cloud enveloped the mountain.  The combination of cloud and snow resulted in classic ‘white-out’ conditions all day and maximum visibility away from the gondola top station was only 5m!  This did, however, give us excellent conditions for practising winter navigation and I even had to resort to throwing snowballs at times just to see where the ground was!

Frozen, Half-Buried Ski Hut on Aonach Mor

The calm conditions allowed me to demonstrate some winter belays in relative comfort, but the soft snow made the ice axe arrest demonstration extremely challenging!  I’d love to have some more photos to show you, but you might as well look at some blank sheets of white paper if you want to see what it was really like!

Frozen, Half-Buried Ski Lift on Aonach Mor

Great stuff though, and a memorable experience bumbling around all day with absolutely nothing to see except our feet!

Ben Nevis – Allt a’ Mhuilinn Path

Ben Nevis & Coire Leis

Rather than repeat the previous day’s white-out wanderings, we elected to stay low and see something!  The NE Face of Ben Nevis is looking particularly impressive just now so we decided to take a close – but safe - look at this impressive piece of UK mountain architecture.

Carn Dearg

We parked at the helpfully-placed North Face car park at Torlundy and climbed up the excellent path through the trees, breaking out into open ground at 270m.  Here, the path meets the Allt a’ Mhuilinn and follows the course of this swift-flowing mountain burn all the way up into Coire Leis.  On our right, there was much evidence of recent avalanche activity on the flanks of Carn Dearg and in the usual avalanche traps below The Castle.  On the left, uniformly steep snow slopes led up onto a cloud-covered Carn Mor Dearg.

  

Coire na Ciste

We met the snow at just over 300m, a deal lower than the previous day, and it got progressively thicker as we climbed towards the CIC hut.  We picked up an uncomfortably cold katabatic headwind just below the hut and quickly sought refuge below a sheltering rock at about 720m from which to survey the wintery scene.

Looking Up No 5 Gulley, Carn Dearg

From here we were able to see high up into Coire na Ciste and observe a number of climbing parties tackling the various cliffs and gulleys that lead up on to the summit plateau.  It can’t have been much fun for those awaiting their turn to climb with that cold, biting wind scything down the cliff face!  No such heroics for us though.  We admired their fortitude, had some lunch and promptly returned back the way we had come!  This path is well worth taking if you want to get up close and personal to Ben Nevis’ pre-eminent feature and see another side of the mountain than that offered by the more traditional Tourist route.

 Chris Determined to Enjoy His Morning Coffee!

   

Check out my plans for this coming winter at: http://www.hillways.co.uk/winter-hillwalking.htm

Ben Nevis – A Winter Ascent 2014

Looking South Across Glen Nevis

The inspiration to try something different often leads to new, and unexpected,  experiences.  And so it was for Donal, Kevin and Sean, three of Ireland’s finest, who decided it would be a great idea to initiate their nascent mountaineering careers with a full-on winter ascent of the highest mountain in the land!  Not that they regretted it for one moment, as it proved to be both memorable and enjoyable – as well as successful!

Heading Up

Their efforts were all the more impressive given that they didn’t reach their previous night’s accommodation until 2AM having driven up from London in a Fiat 500!  Still, they were in fine form as we set off up the tourist track from Achintee on a dry, windless but overcast morning. 

Approaching the Snow Line!

We crossed the snow-line at 500m just below the saddle and a frozen Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe.  Any prospects of a trouble-free conventional ascent up the zig-zags were dealt a terminal blow when we reached the Red Burn.  Weeks of unrelenting snow fall and high winds have created a snow wall that effectively blocks the way ahead, at least for hillwalkers.  The only option was to investigate an alternative route up the left-hand side of the line of the Red Burn - the burn itself is currently buried under several feet of snow!  It was crampons from here on in.

High on the Ben Looking West

Whilst this route offered a more direct way to the summit plateau, it was also a good bit steeper than the route taken by the zig-zags.  Nevertheless, it all balances out in the end and after 90mins of fairy unrelenting steep snow, we intercepted the normal route at the top of the zig-zags.  From here, all but the last 3 of the stone pillars that mark the way to the summit are completely buried so it was back to old days of following a compass bearing in limited visibility to the turning point at the top of Gardyloo Gulley and then on to the summit itself.

The Summit Emergency Shelter Encased in Rime Ice

Here, the ruined observatory was completely buried and both the emergency shelter and the summit trig point were at snow level, their supporting plinths of rock being hidden under layers of snow and rime ice.  

The Summit

There was a brief hint of a clearance in the clouds, but it didn’t last and we were soon re-immersed in mist.  The wind was mercifully light.

Afternoon Light

One final advantage of all the snow cover was it enabled us to take a much more direct route down, rather than be tied to the twists and turns of the tourist track.  Consequently, we made it back to the car in just 2hrs, enjoying some afternoon sunshine and stunning views along the way.       

Meall an t-Suidhe & its Frozen Lochan

  

Check out my plans for this coming winter at: http://www.hillways.co.uk/winter-hillwalking.htm