The Snow is Starting to Fall…
Will Hempstead, October 2023
Mid October and the first routes have been claimed! Last weekend, myself Nathan and Hannah had an extremely fun day out climbing Fall Out Corner in great nick. Hopefully the Daily Star have correctly predicted SnowMageddon for the first time in history and this is the begining of a bumper season.
I’m starting to get together a bit of a wishlist for the upcoming season, but in this process also thinking about some of the most memorable days I’ve been lucky (or unlucky) enough to have out. It’s become a bit cliche to read in climbing literature phrases like ‘it’s not about the climbing, its about the people you share it with’ etc, but in my opinion it’s cliche for a reason. So I guess that is the thread that runs though all of my best days on the hill. These are the three routes I have done which have, in their own ways, had a big personal impact.
Last Post – most significant
Back in 2019 I was still a second year Chemistry student at Glasgow. As I’m sure anyone who has been through Scottish higher education will know, second year is a bit of a doss since your grades still don’t actually count towards your final degree but you have shed the awkwardness of freshers and have some actual friends. As such, I went out a lot in second year and the first weekend of Febuary was no different.
However, we also had some very promising sounding ice conditions so Iain heroically arranged to pick me up from a house party at four am for the drive up to Creag Meagaidh. I had fortunatly not gone too hard but it was still surreal getting in from a party and changing into my climbing kit.
I love walking into totally new crags and we had a treat for Meagaidh. The sun rose to reveal a perfect crisp winter day as we reached the lochain, and Last Post looked fat. Unfortunately, a team had beaten us to it. I remember thinking nothing of it – one team isn’t a queue and as I was still only a year into winter climbing, I wasn’t the fastest anyway. Red flags began to rise when their leader commented that the first move was a bit of a boulder problem (the first pitch is 40m of consistently angled 70 degree ice), and they somehow only had four ice screws with them.
This gave me and Iain a good chance to practice drilling some V threads, until a team of two appeared up the approach gully.
‘Last post?’
‘Yeah, but we might be a while behind these guys’
They didn’t seem put off by this at all, and the shorter of the two pulled out a mini file and started sharpening his axes whilst the taller went off for a shit. The man with the file introduced himself as Murray. I guess it’s funny looking back on meeting someone really significant in your life for the first time – Iain on the GUMC freshers stall, Rob at Dram!, and Murray here in Creag Meagaidh.
Anyway, by this time we had some space so Iain started up and dispatched pitch one with no hassle. We had a bit of a wait whilst the first teams second attempted the crux, backed off and the original leader had to take over but she did get up it pretty quick to be fair, and now it was my turn. One slightly worrying crampon pop and I was at the top of the ice bulges pretty chuffed with myself. Iain saw his chance and with some microtraxion antics we managed to overtake the slow team and simul for the top, although not before we had swapped contact details with Murray and his mate Luke.
With the route in the bag we then had an arguably more epic drive home which involved a nap at the side of the A82 in Iain’s Jazz and a 3am return – a 24 hour day.
This day had it all really – firstly with Iain so the OG team (minus Rob), secondly my first grade V lead, and thirdly meeting Murray who would go on to lead the crux on all of my hardest routes 😉
Sioux Wall – most psyched top out
Fast foward eighteen months and myself and Murray have managed to get ourselves at least part way up some of the best grade VIIs in the Western Highlands. So it goes without saying that we felt pretty confident walking into the Ben for an appointment with Sioux Wall.
This confidence was rapidly diminishing as we reached the CIC and could barely stand up in 80mph winds. After a quick conflab we decided to stash the kit and return the next day, so bailed for tea and a day of chilling with Ryan Ballharry and Michael Murphy who were both living van life in the North Face car park.
Day two had perfect weather and my psych was at an all time high as we rose into Coire na Ciste and saw a perfectly rimed Sioux Wall cutting vertically out of number three gully. I got stuck into pitch one which although much lower angled than the steep cracked wall above, is typically thin on hooks. Eventually I smeared my way into the main crack and fired to the first ledge.
Murray took over for pitch two – the first proper business. Things seemed to be going well until he had his axes on the belay ledge 20m above, and had to execute a classic winter crux – the powder snow ledge mantle. This pitch was amazing to second, with loads of hooks and edges perfect for a front point. I was soon starting up good hooks on pitch three. These led to a wider crack which was unlocked with some cool axe head torques before leading to a small sloping ledge and a junction with the option to traverese right for the original winter finish, or climb a steepening pick crack for the true finish.
For us (Murray) there was no contest, and Murray was soon standing on some very small edges locked off in the pick crack. A promising looking in-situ wire turned out to be snapped, but with some careful manouvres Murray was soon on to better hooks and gear. The pitch culminates in an amazing mini roof to pull onto the top slab. By this time it was fully dark and so I just watched Murray’s head torch pick it’s way up the slab to the platform at the top of the buttress.
The busy Coire had long emptied and the still night felt eerily quiet. I seconded very cold but psyched, fully yarding and locking on rattly hooks whilst swaddled up in my belay jacket to arrive on the platform feeling on top of the world. We had a big hug, and then I got to work and led us up the remaining easy ground to the top. Snow was slowly falling and we took our time walking out, bathing in the afterglow of such an amazing route which we both felt we had to dig deep for. We eventually got back to the car park for one am and slept well despite the wet sleeping bags and north face car park bog campsite.
Two Step Corner – biggest fuck up
By 2023 I had graduated from University and made the move up to Fort William to persue the climbing life. I had a great start to the winter, climbing as much as possible, and with a recent first-of-the-grade I felt reasonably confident.
My parents and younger brother had all decided to take advantage of myself living in a comparitively exciting place and came up to stay over a week at the end of Febuary. We had done all the classic things like the Lost Valley walk and Sammys Fish Bar, and so with a bit of cold on the forecast I decided to take my younger brother George up for some ice climbing on the Ben. Conditions didn’t look great but we decided to walk in and see what was climbable with a strict promise to be back for a booking in the local Indian at tea time.
It was lightly raining in Coire na Ciste and I picked out Two Step Corner as looking reasonably in-condition. With the option to traverse off up No.3 Gully Buttress, I led us up the first two pitches which felt pretty mellow and belayed on a big ledge. George had been doing pretty well so we decided to go for the grade V finish. After arranging a wire and ice screw I climbed a slightly cruddy initial wall to a snow ledge to take stock of the final steepening to the plateau. A familiar Dundonian accent drifted up from the belay, and I looked down to see Iain topping out of the second pitch and chatting away to George.
I had been having some trouble feeling secure on my crampons – I had forgotten to switch from my stubby blunt mixed points to twin longer ice points and was a little bit frustrated as I set out onto the last ice section. Realising that I was at least 10m above the initial screw and wire, I kicked a step and started placing another ice screw.
I felt myself hit the small ledge, spin, and saw the ground rushing up to meet me. Shit.
I hit the snow slope as the rope came tight. George looked shocked. I must have just fallen twenty five meters.
So George, this isn’t really meant to happen…
The adrenaline was coursing through me but I knew I was unlikely to have taken that fall with no injury so lay as still as I could for a few minutes as the high began to wear off. By this time Gemma had reached Iain so he led out from the belay up to me and we both lowered carefully down.
The situation was this – I had what appeared to be a minor broken leg at a belay around 100m off the ground, with three pretty reliable friends. I had also just remembered that I had a pack of 60mg Codeine tablets in my first aid kit. With this in mind Iain tied both ropes together and lowered George the full 120m with strict instructions to dig the biggest ledge possible and wait it out. Myself and Iain then did a Y hang which worked suprisingly well as I could focus on keeping my leg imobile, and we soon made it down to the snow slope. Iain then lowered me down the slope from a series of snow anchors – think Touching the Void but with a less serious injury and a full MRT call-out around an hour away. By the time we made the scree slope the Codeine had really kicked in and I actually felt pretty good, so we pushed on for the CIC using a bum-shuffle method. When I say we, for a while it was just me as I left the others to do a big kit sort where they took off their crampons. This led to a pretty amusing encounter with a Croatian team who seemed suprised to see me alone and crawling, but I reassured them that it was less serious than it looked.
I felt pretty chuffed to make the CIC at the same time as the first of the MRT and we retreated in front of the cozy fire for a cup of tea whilst the rescue team assesed the situation. Robin reasured me that whilst he couldn’t climb grade VIII (arguably neither can I), he would never fall off a V, and that the ice conditions looked like they would be shaping up really nicely for next week. With this firmly in mind and the stretcher assembled I got a very pleasant lift down to the bog-busting ATV that the team had recently invested in whilst catching up with Connor and Matt.
The ATV then sped us down to an awaiting minibus and we made it down to the Belford with half an hour to spare before our reservation at the Indian.
It turned out that I had splintered a bit of the bone off of my Tibial Plateau which required a plate and some pins. After two months non weight-bearing I was back reasonably quickly, and managed to make a Mingulay trip three months post op for which I feel extremely lucky.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped out in that rescue – firstly George who did not sign up for this shit, Iain and Gemma for assisting me down from the route, Vicky and Joe who helped with some painkillers and saved my ice axes, everyone on the Lochaber MRT, and the fantastic NHS staff at the Belford, Raigmore and Addenbrokes Hospitals.