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Swaledale Outdoor Club |
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Swaledale Outdoor Club |
| > Home > Newsletter > Climbing > Ben Nevis Revisited |
Ben Nevis Revisited5th To 7th July 2002Myself and Neil Harold set off after work on Thursday evening for what is turning into an annual July pilgrimage to the CIC hut, we were hoping that the weather was going to be little more favourable than the previous year, which turned out to rather wet. After an overnight stop at the bunkhouse at the Bridge of Orchy we had an early start to fort William for the obligatory breakfast at Nevisport before packing the rucksacks and heading off to the CIC hut. We eventually got to there around lunchtime, to find that Neil's friends from London had already arrived and had gone to Tower Ridge. After sorting out our gear and a bite to eat we headed off to the NE Buttress to do Green and Napier's Route. Arriving at the bottom of the route we found it to be rather wetter than it looked from the hut, so we decided to climb in our walking boots, which turned out to be a rather bad decision for Neil, who led up the first pitch to soon discover that the slabs had very few footholds! After several interesting moves he reached the belay. I quickly changed into my climbing shoes, not wanting to repeat his performance. From the belay we consulted the guidebook as to where the route went: not a great deal of help as the description went 'from the grassy ledge climb easily to the top by small walls and ledges'. So having decided to forget the guidebook we wandered at will up the face finding the most interesting and driest way, eventually reaching the platform to be bathed in the evening sunlight. After scrambling down the back of the buttress we got back to the hut to find Steve Jenkins, Sam Martin, Neil Reed and Jean Mansar had arrived, and the Tower Ridge party had descended safely. Andy Wond and Davinia Ward eventually arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning, after stopping off in Fort William for supper. A peaceful night's sleep for everybody was punctuated by Bomber's snoring, and the mice in the rubbish bags. The latter was dealt with by Neil streaking across the hut to put the bags outside. Saturday morning dawned grey and cold, and over breakfast the climbing arrangements were sorted out. Bomber and Steve planned to do Route 2 on Carn Deareg, Andy and Davinia and Neil, Jean and Sam decided to have a go on a couple of routes on the Douglas Boulder. I decided to wimp out and go for a walk, suffering from rather stiff legs, as result of several weeks of inactivity. The weather decided to take a turn for the worst around midday, turning colder, wetter and windier, I returned to the hut in the early afternoon, wet and cold, followed not too long afterwards by Steve and Bomber who had given up on Route 2 as it was too wet and decided to change to the adjacent Diff route, which involved climbing a chimney which Bomber found to be on the narrow side! We discovered that our best laid plans of keeping the mice out of the food bags had failed as someone had left a chair slightly to close to the table, so the small furry creatures had investigated the contents of several of the bags, but had decided that a blueberry Jordan's Frusili bar and a Mars bar were the most tasty! After changing into dry clothes and several cups of hot tea we decided to check on the other group's progress on the Douglas Boulder using Bomber's binoculars, a Christmas present from his parents. Through the breaks in the cloud and rain we could see a number of people on various ledges near the top making steady but slow progress. They eventually returned to the hut around 7:30 pm cold, wet, tired but all agreed it had been an interesting climb! Sunday morning the weather hadn't really improved and nobody was planning to go climbing again, so myself and Neil headed off down to Fort William for lunch and shopping, whilst the others decided to walk up into Coire Leis for a couple of hours before heading back down to Fort William. Gary Richardson |