This year we were offered the great opportunity to attend a joint meet with the SMC at the CIC hut on Ben Nevis. What we didn’t realize, until we arrived at the hut, is that with the 5 JMCS members, 3 JMCS & SMC members and one JMCS / SMC guest we used almost all of the spaces allocated to the SMC for the meet!
Luckily, we didn’t hog the whole hut as a few other SMC members managed to book some personal spaces.
Conditions were not perfect, with deep fresh snow laying on bare ground and the odd patch of ice and neve hidden beneath. Still, it was winter at least and we were not going to waste it!
The Southwest Ridge of the Douglas Boulder proved a popular choice with all but 3 parties in the hut climbing it. This is a good choice in these conditions (the turf was frozen beneath), except the zero build-up at the base made the normal / direct(?) start quite tricky. Well done to Pete & Dean who led this and Luis & Lee who followed. Dave and Rob did the more sensible grade III start up the gully to avoid the crowds. I think the score was SW ridge 3 (may be 4?) – JMCS 0 as nearly or perhaps everyone? got spat off the very tricky start which is normally much easier with a bit more snow build-up at the base.
Colywn and Dave (SMC member) chose a line near by that turned out to be Fawlty Towers while Seb and I opted for an adventure on Northeast Buttress.
Braced for a long day it was nice to arrive on the top around 5pm, just after dark. Luckily, I had managed to convince the ever (overly) optimistic Seb that starting up Slingsby’s chimney (desperate for the grade without neve) or Green Hollow Route (215m IV,4) to start the ridge was not a good idea if we wanted any sleep that night.
The Man Trap was desperate as always, perhaps more so on this occasion as Seb flew off backwards before opting for the ‘bypass route’ to the right. This is written up in the guidebook as ‘not much easier,’ but it was easier and did have (one piece of) gear at about the right place. It was interesting to take this variation as I had not done it before.
I had managed to get the 40th Corner rather than the Man Trap which while still engrossing was much easier. I’ve done this twice before, once in the dark in terrible conditions (when I didn’t know there is a ledge system leading out right that bypasses the desperately rounded slabby top if no neve is present) and once when I almost walked up it. That day conditions were in between, but I did remember the ledge at the top!
We topped out just as the weather was turning (it was deteriorating badly after around 6 or 7pm) and had to navigate to the trigpoint to get our exact location before heading down to the abseil posts and down into Coire Leis where a snowy wallow took us back to the hut for tea & medals at 7pm.
That is when the real adventure began…
Rob, Luis, Pete, Dean and Lee opted to head out that night as the weather was forecasted to be terrible on Sunday. All was well until they arrived to find the North Face Car Park covered in sheet ice. One set of snow chains between 3 (of our) cars plus a few others generally doesn’t work out that well. However luckily Rob had a tow rope as well as chains and managed to tow everyone, except Lee, out over the last ride to the road beyond. Well done, Rob! Lee managed to take a long enough run up (in his shiny new car) to make it to the road unassisted.
This was all going on unbeknown to us eating dinner in the hut. Our adventure was to play out on Sunday lunchtime with a slightly better ratio of cars to chains at 3:6. This got lowered to 3:7 when we came across a van stuck & blocking the track. The ratio should have been 4:7 but Seb’s chains were not readily available, being at home in his garage… Luckily all cars and van had more or less the same size wheels (a few show laces we deployed to help a couple of fittings) and by ferrying cars and chains back and forth JMCS roadside recovery got the job done, again.