The actual route, and what happened
Ben Nevis & Carn Mor Dearg
I arrived at Lochailort at 11.30am on Saturday 16th as planned. Then things changed. I met the Cider Crunchers and Quincy - so of course we decided to have a drink before setting off.
At 2pm we thought it was time to make a move - they towards Charlie's Cave, me to Cona Glen. On reaching Cona Glen I decided to carry onto Fort William, hoping to find somewhere to camp beside the road. But the road was fenced off all the way along, so I eventually got to Camaghael where there was a camp site behind the school, arriving at 9.00pm after a distance of 24 miles. A short first day.
Sunday 17th
I walked through to Fort William and on to the Glen Nevis camp site to wait for Iain, who had started from a different start point.
Monday 18th
Up at 5am to be away by 6am. A bright, clear but cold morning. The day started well. The walk up to the zig zags was good and we were making good time, but then the weather started to close in and it started to snow.The route to the top became difficult with deep fresh snow, so we didn't make the top until after 12 noon.
Going past the abseil posts to the arête was quite terrifying, even with crampons on, as the fresh snow was over ice. The slope was steep, with a drop over the North Face. The wind was strong now, and we had the snow covered arete to traverse.
The arête; a 1km long narrow path with frightening drops on both sides, using the ice axe, and still wearing crampons. The going was slow but steady, when suddenly a very large rock loomed up, blocking the path
Iain, being over 6ft managed to reach round to pull himself round. I being only 5ft 4ins could not reach. I looked down on both sides but saw nothing but the drop. A moment of panic set in. "what do I do? Try to go back?". Then Iain said, "Give me the end of your axe, and I'll pull you round".
As he pulled me round with my feet dangling in mid air I thought 'please don't let go', but he got me past and we continued to the top of Carn Mor Dearg.
We then continued down the nose of Carn Mor Dearg towards Aonach Beag, but as we went the snow got deeper until it was impossible to go any further. We then decided that we would have to scramble and slide down the south side to reach the bealach between the mountains. This took 2½ hours of exhilaration and fear. When we got down we realised that it was too late to proceed, so decided to camp at 2,500ft.
