Winter Mountaineering Course and Ben Nevis Ascent

Course: Winter Mountaineering
Leader: Dave Barker

Day 1

Aonach Mor – West side end of Nid ridge – ski tow above gondola station.
We met at the hotel and sorted and checked kit, as well as discussing potential plans and aims for the following days. We then headed off to Nevis Range and took the gondola up to the top station, heading over to the end of the Nid ridge (on the western side), taking advantage of some patches of snow to start exploring movement without crampons and how to create steps in varying angles and hardness of snow.

Once we got to the base of the Nid Ridge and the slope angle increased we introduced the ice axe and explored how to use it to enhance our security on the steeper slopes. We continued up the slope experimenting with using both our boots and the axe to create suitable steps according to the angle and hardness of the snow. We also tried ascending few rocky steps to make things a bit more exciting.

Once we gained the ridge we donned our crampons and looked at a variety of techniques as we progressed a short way along the ridge in some fairly stiff winds. We quickly dropped off the ridge at the first opportunity to lose the wind and played around with a variety of techniques for descending using crampons at first and then without crampons as the snow began to get softer. We finished off with some glissading and self arrest, before heading back to the Gondola to descend to the car park.

Day 2

Glencoe – Stob Coire Nan Lochan – western slopes just below main coire.
We started off at the Hotel and looked at some rope work and knots while the weather improved. We then headed down to Glencoe and walked in to Stob CoireNan Lochan to a point just below the main Coire.

Here we looked at snow anchors and put into practice what we had introduced earlier. We looked at a variety of snow anchors: bucket seat, buried axe, bollard and reinforced axe and used them to practice dynamic belaying, holding a sliding partner and abseiling. We then descended back down to the car.

Day 3

Ben Nevis – CMD Arete.
Variable becoming NW 10-20mph, mainly dry with some snow showers later, FL 600-900, later 1000m. Visability few hundred metres, occasionally clearing early on. New snow down to about 600m.

An earlier start today, found us meeting at Nevis Range car park at 7am, to allow plenty of time for a return in time to catch flights home from Glasgow. We drove up to the top car park and set off around the CMD arete in good weather, with reasonable visibility. We made steady progress over the next two and a half hours to the summit of Carn-Dearg Maedonhach (1179m). We arrived just after the cloud had lowered to just below the tops, reducing the visibility to a few hundred meters.

Over the next few hours we continued over Carn-Mor Dearg (1220m) and on around the narrower, more technical rocky section of the ridge. We arrived at the col above Coire Leis a little behind schedule, but still with sufficient time to complete our circuit and return to the cars in time for the journey to the airport (we hoped!). The final summit slopes proved to be a little firmer than anticipated and were a thorough test of our non crampon step making ability practiced on the first day. We made the summit (1345m) at 1.30pm and after a brief stop to rest, hydrate and refuel we started our descent via the mountain track, red burn, half way lochan and moorland crossing.

We gained some time back with some glissading down the red burn and arrived back at the bus at 3.45 pm. Just time to descend back to the car park, return hire kit and leap in the car for the journey to the airport (a mere 5mins behind schedule). Unfortunately the traffic didn’t quite understand our cunning plan and due to some traffic jams the guys made check in with just a few minutes to spare. (still, better than sitting around in the airport for ages!!)

Gallery