It’s been a long time since I was walking up to climb on the North Face of Ben Nevis in Scotland. This path was a regular trade route when I was working towards my MIC assessment, some six years ago. In my usual way of packing things in to a finite number of days, I’d driven from Wales last night, stopping for a few hours sleep near Perth. Before 6am, I was back on the road and pulled into the North Face car park at 8, where my friend Jamie was already waiting for me. We got boots on and started walking in almost immediately. The eastern side of Scotland had low clouds and was raining or snowing hard. In places the snow was settling on the roads. Over west, dry weather remained, but the winds were exceptional. We battled upwards into a 70mph headwind. 

With a route in mind, I agreed to continue up to see if there was any shelter up by Tower Ridge. We got to within striking distance of the climb, but decided it was not safe to continue. It was a shame as the routes all looked in great condition, but the wind was too strong and dangerous to contend with. Down below, the hut looked almost buried.

There was nothing for it, but to head back towards the hut, where perhaps the lower and less committing Carn Dearg Cascades might provide a consolation prize?

The Cascades were as big as I could remember, but still exposed to the full force of the wind.

Just beyond the main frozen falls, we found a two pitch gully that gave some good climbing on ice screws. It was not exactly sheltered, but was still much more sheltered than anything else we’d found.

We rigged some tat around a spike at the top so we could abseil down. Above us a team we’re climbing ‘waterfall climb’, which looked good, but the wind was unrelenting and by now, there was also some snow in the air.

We decided to retreat down the ropes and continue down to the valley. 

There was an in-situ ice thread half way down the abseil, but luckily, our 60m ropes made it all the way to the ground.

We threw the ropes into our packs and staggered away!

Even back down in the forest, the winds still blew. It had been the right decision and soon we were back at Jamie’s flat eating well earned brownies and drinking tea. As I have to be in Cairngorm tomorrow, I drove over at dusk, arriving exhausted and happy with our efforts.