50 Shades of Hillwalking by Ralph Storer

Author:Ralph Storer [Storer, Ralph]
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Tags: Walking, hiking, trekking
Publisher: Luath Press Ltd
Published: 2015-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

27

Icefall Shenanigans

SANDY WAS A MUCH better climber than I was, and I don’t mean to damn him by faint praise. It was thanks to his skill and determination that, much to my surprise, I found myself tackling winter routes on the North Face of Ben Nevis. In the great Scottish tradition, he was drawn to climb in conditions most of us might consider hazardous even for festering in a tent. The more the buttresses bulged with ice and the gullies brimmed with snow, the more he loved it. Battling against nightfall and/or blizzard was a bonus.

He trusted me as his second on the rope and I was eager to learn. New to Scottish winter mountaineering, ignorant of danger, imbued with the immortality of youth, I trusted him to lead me to places I would never have ventured otherwise. If he was willing to lead, I was willing to follow. What could possibly go wrong?

Oddly, in my early days on the hill, I was never as tentative on snow and ice as I was on rock. Even more oddly, despite all evidence to the contrary, this is still the case. My head tells me that rock is generally reliable and secure, whereas ice is a tad slippery. My heart tells me differently. By some sleight of mind I convince myself that, if things get difficult, all I need to do is hack a bigger hold in the snow with my ice axe or thrust my crampon points further into the ice. This is pure nonsense, of course, but that isn’t the point. What is important for my ability to climb is my belief in it.

Nevertheless, the series of climbs that constituted our sole winter season on the Ben was to prove a salutary lesson for both Sandy and myself. I wish I could say we front-pointed up some startling new lines that had previously been considered unconscionable by the worthies of the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Alas, the reality was somewhat different. Even in gullies that some stalwarts used to descend from the summit plateau, we rarely managed to squirm our way up.

There was always a good reason for our failure. Sometimes the ice was too thin and brittle. Sometimes the snow was too deep and soft. Sometimes a gale threatened to peel us off the face of the mountain. Sometimes spindrift reduced visibility to zero. Yes, there was always a good reason.

Over the course of the season, we began to acquire a reputation for our exploits. I briefly relate a few incidents in The Joy of Hillwalking. There was the time, during one December retreat down South Castle Gully, when Sandy abseiled through the snow slope into a cave formed behind it by a rock overhang.

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