A week with the Munros
Saturday – I awoke to find Archie on the side of my bed. He announces that he would like to come with me for the week to Cluanie Lodge and promptly quits his job. Louise and David arrive shortly after lunch and travelled with them up to Cluanie. The minibus hadn’t arrived.
Oh bliss! We get the choice of rooms. But… gasp… there appear to be about about 5 million to choose from. The lodge is the sort of place that were you to play hide and seek you might find a few skeletons a few years later: it’s big!
The minibus arrived having had two punctures and starting problems. I acquainted myself with the mob. They seemed a cheery bunch of utter nutters. Dinner is served on a long table which seats fourteen easily.
Sunday – Hard to tell when to get up since you can’t hear anyone moving about. Decide to ring the breakfast bell after this. Have breakfast and as we are about to leave Archie arrives. Five minutes later and he would have missed us.
Travelled to Eilean Dornan Castle near Kyle of Lochalsh and headed up the hill. The party soon split up. Lizzie (our pet crocodile)decides to tag along with me. But she soon tires and ends up in my day-pack! If you have ever played with jumping beans then you will know what carrying a dog in your pack feels like. Lizzie also weighs 18lbs. I decide to avoid the next ascent and skirt the bottom of the top (eh?) with Louise. As a result of this we lost touch with the others but saw a herd of about 50 deer. On our descent – Lizzie had decided to jump out of my pack – the sun came out and we stopped and sun-bathed for a bit. At the bottom we met up with some of the others and made our way to the minibus.
Returned to the lodge and played Sardines. Since there was no moon it was pitch dark in the lodge. This led to considerable confusion, not to mention bruised shins. Eventually retired sometime after 2am! The old feller in the neighbouring cottage seems a bit confused about the whole thing!
Monday – Got up reasonably early and a group of us walked u p the road from the lodge. Inevitably this group fragmented and five of us (self, Archie, lan, Phil or should I say ‘Arry, and Sarah) headed off up the South Glen Shiel ridge (East end). The ascent was superb and we found ourselves cutting steps to reach the shoulder leading to the summit of *******. The weather cleared and we had pretty good views. We headed West along the ridge and were immediately caught in a squall which felt like being attacked by a sand-blaster. The ascent to the next peak, *******, was up a very narrow ridge – pretty scary stuff! We. descended this peak by glissading. At the bottom we felt pretty chuffed and so celebrated by having a beer at the Cluanie Inn.
Tuesday – Most people decided to climb Ben Nevis. There were two parties, one ascending via the arete to the summit, and my party (self, ‘Arry, Jane, Amanda) ascending via the tourist path.
The Glissading Incident.
A. The Short Story – “I slipped and fell”. The “slip” was 2000ft. The “fall” was 6ft into a rock pool.
B. The longer version – Two parties ascended Ben Nevis on what turned out to be a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day.
The “fast” party ascended via the arete. This trip was, according to lan, “orgasmic”.
The “slow” party ascended via the Tourist route.
We stopped for lunch before reaching the snow line at 2000ft. At the Red Burn (not to be confused with Snoopy and the Red Baron) Amanda baulked at a tricky little traverse round a rock pool. I sent Jane and Phil on and took Amanda back towards the snowline. She subsequently made her way back to the minibus parked by the Youth Hostel.
Phil and Jane carried on, and in order to catch up, climbed directly up the hill after the Red Burn. This avoided the zig-zag traversal of the shoulder of the hill but turned out to be pretty knackering. I had been sitting for about 5 minutes, having regained the path, when Phil and Jane turned ap. We continued to the summit and met the “fast” party coming down. We stopped for a chat and then carried on to the top. It was a gorgeous day.
Phil and I were goggle-eyed (Phil especially!) when a climber came up the vertical front face of the hill, over the cornice as if he were on a Sunday stroll! The descent was pretty fast with Phil and Jane glissading. Glissading proved difficult until we were further down. Then we found a wonderful slide, all of us descending a good few hundred feet very quickly!!! This took us into a gully where we stopped at an obstacle. A short traverse. enabled me to continue the glissade for another 50ft round a bend to what turned out to be the path just above the Red Burn rock pool. I had stopped short of a 6ft drop into the pool. Phil came down next and I warned him of the drop. He avoided it by going down the right-hand side where the drop was minimal. Jane, however, was not so lucky and in trying to stop, spun round head first and took off over the drop, landing very badly.
Things happened very quickly after this. Phil was closer and reached Jane first. He immediately took off down the hill to fetch help.
Jane was lying in the melt water coming down the burn. It was clear that she would freeze if she stayed there. At the same time it was clear that she was in some pain with what might have been a broken leg/hip. She was also in shock. Having done a cursory examination I decided to risk moving her. I managed to get her to her feet and discovered that (a) she could wriggle the toes of her right foot and (b) could take some weight on it. (Most of the pain was coming from her right hip.) At this point she nearly fainted and felt ill. But I felt much relieved.
Fortunately Sid turned up. Sid and a friend had been sent back by Phil. We immediately laid Jane on a bivvy-bag and tried to keep her warm. Shortly after this the “fast” party (minus Mark) turned up. Jane started sliding down the hill and we ended up by belaying her to an ice-axe! Since she was effectively lying on the snow she started getting cold so Sid suggested that I take off my boots and climb into the bivvy-bag to keep her warm. This I did but her feet were still cold despite the fact that the heat soon built up in the bag. So next Sid cut out the bottom of the bivvy-bag, took Jane’s socks off, put a dry pair on (lent by Tim) and then put Jane’s trainers on. Finally he put all feet and bivvy-bag into Jane’s rucksack.
Time had ceased to have any meaning for me but it seemed that a chopper appeared from nowhere. Phil had obviously got through to the rescue services very quickly! The chopper dropped a winchman slightly downhill of the burn and he carried out a brief examination of Jane, coming to similar conclusions as myself. (I had by this time climbed out of the bivvy-bag and back into my boots which were ice cold: I was wearing two blocks of ice on my feet!) The winchman had gas with him and if Jane had. been in a bad way I think he would have put her under very quickly.
About ten minutes (I guess) later the chopper returned and dropped the doctor and three members of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue team one of whom immediately plunged to his waist in the ice bridge where Jane lay! For all their apparent casualness I suspect they were prepared to respond very quickly indeed!
The doctor gave an even more cursory examination and pronounced a broken femur. I personally didn’t believe this.
Next Jane was cut out of the bag and tied on to the winchman’s stretcher and then we carried her to a slightly better site. The helicopter then returned and winched Jane and the winchman into the chopper. They then flew off leaving the rest of us to sort out the gear.
I had to descend to a flat piece of ground near the lochan where the chopper returned and picked me and the rescue team up and took us to Fort William. From here I went to the Police Station and made a statement which wasn’t too easy since I had trouble explaining my relationship with the rest of the group and I couldn’t remember people’s surnames.
I asked the sergeant to contact the lodge and then a PC drove me to the hospital where I saw Jane. She seemed OK. The doctor arrived and I retired to the waiting room. Since my socks were wet I took off my boots and socks and hung them over the radiator with my scarf, gloves and woollen hat. This presented a slight problem when the sister asked me if I wanted to go with Jane to the surgical ward (they had decided to keep her in overnight). In the end I abandonded my socks etc. and made my way barefoot to the ward. This seemed to cause a deal of amusement. By this time I knew that Jane had severe bruising but no broken bones. However, there was still the faint suspicion of a damaged kidney.
Phil and Amanda turned up shortly after and we all went in and said goodnight to Jane. I guess Phil in particular must have been relieved to see Jane since he had seen her immediately prior and after the accident but had no idea of its severity.
We returned to the waiting room where I announced to the rest that Jane had had twins. We then retreated to a local pub (The Crofter) after having trouble starting the van (again!). Finally we returned to the lodge pretty shattered at about 10.30pm! Dinner was very late and slightly morbid but maybe that’s because we were so tired.
To bed late.
Wednesday – A funny day ie. odd. I went to Fort William with Louise and David G. having got up late along with everyone else. We took Jane’s clothes in and the hospital released her. David and Louise then went off up Glen Nevis to do some bouldering while I showed Jane the sights of Fort William. This must have taken all of five minutes! I stretched the time by having some lunch in Nevisport and buying some crampon straps for David W. In the end though, I gave in and retreated to the Crofter saving thon, Liza we Lizzie off to the inhabitants of Fort William.
We met David and Louise later, back at Nevisport. Day ends – a bit of a nondescript day really.
Thursday – Tackled the South Glen Shiel ridge from West to East with David G., Tim and Mark. This was a superb walk with an estimated 6500ft of ascent! The trickiest bit of the whole walk occurred immediately after attaining the ridge. We had to make a descent down a 20ft rock face covered in ice. Boy was I grateful for an ice axe! We nearly lost Tim at one point when he slipped but I suspect he planned it so that he could have ice-axe practice! I also managed to get a friction blister when I fell into an ice covered burn with my right hand.
We all did some glissading on the descent from the ridge which was a bit of a giggle. We returned to the lodge and then David G. and I took Louise , to the pub, a two mile walk! Since the pub refused to let Lizzie in Louise had to return to the lodge but David and I drank a beer for her. Time passed and we a beer rolled back up the hill to the lodge.
The Skye party eventually returned (very late!) and we all ate. The weather was beautiful.
Friday – Up latish, had breakfast and then the usual indecisions about who wants to do what and with whom. The fact that it was raining didn’t help! In the end we all went to the head of Loch Duich and ascended the first part of the Five Sisters ridge. The higher we went the nastier the weather became. Did a little bit of rock climbing on the final summit and then headed down. Amanda had a touch of vertigo again but nothing serious!
In a burst of pure exuberance I ran practically the whole way back down to the van covering the distance very quickly. if rather recklessly. After driving down a road that led nowhere we returned to the Cluanie Inn. I went to find out if to drive off just as i reached the minibus and in trying to thwart him I jumped on the back step • but the door flew open and gave me a cracking bruise on m y forehead! Groan.
Did a bit of pottering then had a pub session before dinner. After dinner a game of “One Duck, two laughing geese” which Mark was hilariously bad at. Then two games of Sardines (the first one very noisy) prior to bed.
lain