After my final exam I chose to escape the city and run away to Ben Nevis. After booking the CIC hut for the night, something I can recommend to anyone who wishes to visit the North Face, I took the train to Fort William. From Fort William a short walk to a gap in the trees surrounding the golf course presents the old path. Over grown and rarely trod, this often muddy path through the trees offers a fantastic walk through the glen avoiding the ugly forestry commission tracks before emerging from the forest and into open moorland. I reached the CIC hut just before the fog and heavier rain closed in, with the melt water causing an exciting stream crossing for a soloist just short of the hut.
Staying in the CIC hut that night with the Inverness Backcountry Skiing club was great. A collection of mountain lovers all on the Ben to enjoy life and experience the surroundings. We had a great time, as a climber I had packed a boil in a bag and some snacks for the next day but the hospitality of the club was apparent when I was offered cheeses and wine which it would be rude to refuse. We stayed up late discussing the mountains and my plans of a trip to the alps that summer.
The next morning I woke to rain and postponed my trip as a fellow climber who was known to members of the club was apparently heading up and may be interested in climbing together. By 1000hrs the weather had cleared and with no sign of a partner I began to ascend the slopes below No. 5 Gully and the route for the day, Ledge Route.
As I ascended the slopes the stories of the night before echoed in my ears, one of the party had been involved in a rescue high on the route in a grim and serious accident with one fatality. I plodded on assessing the snow, consolidated but wet from thawing.
Climbing up No.5 gully I began to trend right towards the ledge, bare of snow. Due to the snow melt above the cliffs were separated from the bulk of the gully snow by an almost bergschrund like gap. The gap was bridged occasionally by snow and I crossed a snow bridge which felt barely adequate onto the first ledge.
The ledge sloped away to the right, gently and to the left was a slightly overhanging rock. Climbing further along the ledge I realised this was not the route of the day, the ledge itself was awash with just enough water to make your boots feel buoyant and black lichenous slime covered all the rocks. It didn't take long to make the decision to not risk a 300ft fall over the cliffs below and retreat.
I abseiled down two 30m lengths in order to get back to No.5 Gully using snow anchors and rock spikes for protection as retreating back along the snow bridge was not inviting.
Not giving up I decided to head higher up No.5 Gully to traverse into ledge route higher up. This would be more exposed but potentially could still see me reaching the summit. I was stopped roughly half way up No.5 Gully by a large glide crack. Still trying I traversed left to another snow bridge and stepped across onto some scree and climbed some choss until the base of a wall. The wall had a vertical crack which I climbed self belaying for two pitches, 40m. From here I realised I couldn't make the traverse to ledge route as the snow was crossed by more cracks.
I abbed off and began my retreat. Four abseils saw me below the glide crack and looking into the bergschrund as I bounced across. The gap between the snow and rock must have been 15m in depth. I pulled my rope through and traversed to the other side and began a slow climb down by now very slushy snow. During the descent rocks began to fall down the left hand side of the gully, I avoided this area as it was stained and pitted, a decision as I was glad of as the rocks bounced down.
Two hours of down climbing later saw me at the bottom of the gully absolutely exhausted and glad to be in one piece. I sat behind a large rock to remove my crampons and rested for an hour before picking myself up to descend to the CIC hut and pick up my kit. I'd been so involved in the day I'd not eaten or drank. Four Mars bars gave me the energy I needed to get back to Fort William.
Tuesday 18 October 2016
Mer de Glace
Altitude, something that I had never encountered before I embarked on a trip to the Courvercle Hut from Montenvers. I was shocked at how debilitating a lack of oxygen in the air can be.
We climbed down the ladders from Montenvers Station, our first trip to the alps, our first attempt at acclimatisation and our first time on a glacier. The descent to the Mer de Glace in itself is exciting, having no experience of Via Ferratta, it involves a series of long ladders followed by a steep moraine scree to the surface of a dry glacier.
The whole experience was incredible, we crossed a small glacial stream and were able to proceed without crampons due to the nature of the grit within the ice. The environment surrounding us utterly alien, we saw guided groups moving with less trepidation and decided we were being overly cautious, we moved quicker as the glacial environment became more familiar. Although I had years of climbing experience on Sammy we were both learning.
With no money for guides we had to learn from books and practice techniques in the UK where we could. The winter of 2014, had taught me a little about how to walk in crampons and Sammy had only ever worn them in an indoor wall. We used the opportunity to practice our skills watching what the guides taught their clients from a distance, the slopes they walked across and how they moved. This opened up new ideas of what was possible and gave us confidence. Sammy, ever the natural with footwork struggled little.
We put on the rope as we progressed practicing moving together our crevasse rescue kit jingling away. There was no objective danger to necessitate this however it helped us become more familiar with what we would need to do later.
A British guide walking the other way stopped for a chat and we confirmed that the Courvercle hut was up a set of ladders, the paint marks being yellow squares. knowing we had to cross the large glacial river which runs off centre down the left hand side of the glacier as you face up it we headed towards this. A few guided groups were crossing the raging torrent using a gentle slope of ice to a large rock and a subsequent jump to a smaller ice ledge and a steep climb out so we sat and had a quick bite to eat before attempting this.
The jump from a slopey rock in crampons was more risky for the first person across so I sent Sammy first, allowing me to secure her with a belay. I followed and we climbed the steeper ice slope out. Unlike Scottish winter snow climbing the ice was bullet hard, secure. We congratulated ourselves on how we'd handled this and proceeded aware that we were behind schedule and would possibly be walking down from Montenvers rather than getting the train.
Not a great deal further ahead we spotted an oil drum cairn on the morraine and yellow squares painted on the cliffs above and we headed across the morraine. It was about 1500hrs at this time so we stopped for another snack and something to drink before carrying on for another 15mins or so to the base of a ladder. Here Sammy realised that she had left her gloves where we had the water and wanted to go back to get them, this wasn't really an option as we had no discernable foot prints among the many that cross the morraine looking for the easiest route and the only defining feature of the place where we stopped was that it was 'behind a big boulder' in a sea or them. We opted to crack on.
Sammy lead the way up the ladder climbing approximately 30m of rope ahead of me, enough for 5 bolts or so. The route is well bolted and the ladders here are stable though in places overhanging. 30mins later we had climbed all the ladders necessary to a large platform, where we saw our first Ibex. Climbing on we expected the hut to be only 30mins away. Well over 1 hour later we were overtaken by a faster team who confirmed that the hut was not much further and we rang the hut to book in for the night as we were well behind time. Around this time the altitude hit me, I've since learnt that I begin to feel the effects at 2500m, Sammy however was not short of breath yet but being more powerfully built I found all the smaller laddered and scrambling sections difficult.
It turned out that we had taken the wrong set of ladders to the hut, these ladders are part of the new Balcon route and are not the Eschelets described in the Cicerone guides. The guidebook time for the circular walk back to Montenvers is given as 8 hours, most people we spoke to thought that 4 hours to the Courvercle is unrealistic and 6 hours would be good going. Unacclimitised and practicing techniques this took us almost 8.
Lessons learnt; Don't believe the guidebook times, Don't use Cicerone guidebooks (similar experiences in the UK), Don't drink alcohol at altitude.
This is not to say that this was a bad experience, we had succeeded, we were tired but the hut had room and food. That night we dined with an artist and an older mountaineer who was guiding him to allow him to paint the landscapes. Kindly he offered to take us to the col they were visiting the next day but we declined due to limited funds barring us from another night in the hut. We had a glass of wine each and watched the sunset over the Grand Jorasses, that night I found myself needing to force myself to breathe deeply or feel too nauseous to sleep, the wine had taken effect, combined with the altitude it made for a terrible nights sleep followed until the alcohol left my system.
We descended via the old balcon route, past the Charapoua Glacier and descending the ladders opposite the Egralets to the Mer de Glace the path to the Charapoua and crossing beneath the glacier was exciting. Many pegged steps are bent or broken by rock fall from above making for some exciting steps. Crossing below the Charapoua glacier is best done with haste, the seracs and rocks above are funneled down a 300m wide polished rock slab, this is not a place to linger and a slip could see you take a slide towards the drop towards the Mer de Glace. As we were crossing Sammy sent me first to ensure that I didn't rush her too much, about 20m from the end of the traverse she slipped on some wet polished rock. Luckily this only caused my heart to stop as she cried out and she was fine and we cracked on.
I have been told since that the ladders opposite Montenvers have been removed.
Looking down the Mer de Glace from Montenvers
Setting foot on glacial ice for the first time
With no money for guides we had to learn from books and practice techniques in the UK where we could. The winter of 2014, had taught me a little about how to walk in crampons and Sammy had only ever worn them in an indoor wall. We used the opportunity to practice our skills watching what the guides taught their clients from a distance, the slopes they walked across and how they moved. This opened up new ideas of what was possible and gave us confidence. Sammy, ever the natural with footwork struggled little.
We put on the rope as we progressed practicing moving together our crevasse rescue kit jingling away. There was no objective danger to necessitate this however it helped us become more familiar with what we would need to do later.
A British guide walking the other way stopped for a chat and we confirmed that the Courvercle hut was up a set of ladders, the paint marks being yellow squares. knowing we had to cross the large glacial river which runs off centre down the left hand side of the glacier as you face up it we headed towards this. A few guided groups were crossing the raging torrent using a gentle slope of ice to a large rock and a subsequent jump to a smaller ice ledge and a steep climb out so we sat and had a quick bite to eat before attempting this.
The glacial river, fast flowing and cold.
The jump from a slopey rock in crampons was more risky for the first person across so I sent Sammy first, allowing me to secure her with a belay. I followed and we climbed the steeper ice slope out. Unlike Scottish winter snow climbing the ice was bullet hard, secure. We congratulated ourselves on how we'd handled this and proceeded aware that we were behind schedule and would possibly be walking down from Montenvers rather than getting the train.
Not a great deal further ahead we spotted an oil drum cairn on the morraine and yellow squares painted on the cliffs above and we headed across the morraine. It was about 1500hrs at this time so we stopped for another snack and something to drink before carrying on for another 15mins or so to the base of a ladder. Here Sammy realised that she had left her gloves where we had the water and wanted to go back to get them, this wasn't really an option as we had no discernable foot prints among the many that cross the morraine looking for the easiest route and the only defining feature of the place where we stopped was that it was 'behind a big boulder' in a sea or them. We opted to crack on.
At the bottom of the ladders leading to the Balcon and the Courvercle
Sammy lead the way up the ladder climbing approximately 30m of rope ahead of me, enough for 5 bolts or so. The route is well bolted and the ladders here are stable though in places overhanging. 30mins later we had climbed all the ladders necessary to a large platform, where we saw our first Ibex. Climbing on we expected the hut to be only 30mins away. Well over 1 hour later we were overtaken by a faster team who confirmed that the hut was not much further and we rang the hut to book in for the night as we were well behind time. Around this time the altitude hit me, I've since learnt that I begin to feel the effects at 2500m, Sammy however was not short of breath yet but being more powerfully built I found all the smaller laddered and scrambling sections difficult.
An Ibex and The Grande Jorasses
It turned out that we had taken the wrong set of ladders to the hut, these ladders are part of the new Balcon route and are not the Eschelets described in the Cicerone guides. The guidebook time for the circular walk back to Montenvers is given as 8 hours, most people we spoke to thought that 4 hours to the Courvercle is unrealistic and 6 hours would be good going. Unacclimitised and practicing techniques this took us almost 8.
The Grande Jorasses, from hear we heard a rock fall which lasted for 20 minutes
Lessons learnt; Don't believe the guidebook times, Don't use Cicerone guidebooks (similar experiences in the UK), Don't drink alcohol at altitude.
This is not to say that this was a bad experience, we had succeeded, we were tired but the hut had room and food. That night we dined with an artist and an older mountaineer who was guiding him to allow him to paint the landscapes. Kindly he offered to take us to the col they were visiting the next day but we declined due to limited funds barring us from another night in the hut. We had a glass of wine each and watched the sunset over the Grand Jorasses, that night I found myself needing to force myself to breathe deeply or feel too nauseous to sleep, the wine had taken effect, combined with the altitude it made for a terrible nights sleep followed until the alcohol left my system.
We descended via the old balcon route, past the Charapoua Glacier and descending the ladders opposite the Egralets to the Mer de Glace the path to the Charapoua and crossing beneath the glacier was exciting. Many pegged steps are bent or broken by rock fall from above making for some exciting steps. Crossing below the Charapoua glacier is best done with haste, the seracs and rocks above are funneled down a 300m wide polished rock slab, this is not a place to linger and a slip could see you take a slide towards the drop towards the Mer de Glace. As we were crossing Sammy sent me first to ensure that I didn't rush her too much, about 20m from the end of the traverse she slipped on some wet polished rock. Luckily this only caused my heart to stop as she cried out and she was fine and we cracked on.
Looking back from below the Charapoua Hut, at the left of the picture is the line of the Balcon route. looking South into the distance it is possible to view left to right the Grande Jorasses, Rochfort Arete and the Dent du Geant.
I have been told since that the ladders opposite Montenvers have been removed.
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