The Winter Week That Was
Back in February 1983 I had one of the most amazing half-term winter climbing weeks I could ever have dreamed of. Myself and Tony Furniss managed to blag a couple of places on the Eden Valley Mountaineering Club’s booking at the CIC Hut on the Ben. My big dream for the week was that I might feel up to having a crack at Point Five Gully… by the end of the week. The previous winter I’d had my first taste of the classic Grade Vs after being dragged up Vanishing Gully’s lower pitches. I was beginning to dream. And that February half term started out well enough!
Being young free and single (i.e. a smelly dirt bag) I got out on the first Saturday, with Phil Rigby, in the Lakes. They were proper winters back then, before we buggered up the atmosphere! We had heard a whisper that Raven Crag Gully was in. So, early doors, we flew up to Combe Ghyll on a breathlessly frosty perfect winter’s dawn. But we were beaten to it by (I think) 2 teams. We ummed and ahhhed about waiting, but it was frosty: neither toes nor fingers felt keen on waiting in the shadows.
Phil, who was a far stronger climber than I, suggested we try Corvus as a winter route. I hadn’t climbed it as a rock route back then so I nearly crapped my pants at the thought of that. We geared up and disturbingly, Phil pointed me at the first pitch and encouraged me to have a crack. I had NO clue what I was doing on a mixed route, but managed to get up the first stretch without too many wobbles. I had entertained many visions of “doing mixed” after reading so many climbing books, but I was pretty unprepared for the reality. By the time we got up the next couple of pitches, to the start of the hand traverse pitch I’d had my mixed baptism.
That day there was a great fat icefall coming down to the right of the famous hand-traverse on Corvus. Naturally we aimed at that ice. I scratted around for something decent to belay on, but everything slanted the wrong way or was hidden by thick ice. Even the screw in the bottom of the ice was complete rubbish. Undeterred, Phil led up, but about 60 feet up he let out a squawk. Both feet and an axe broke loose leaving him hanging off a single point. It could very easily have been death for both of us, there wasn’t another screw between him and the belay! Somehow he stayed suspended and recovered quickly. That was the first heart in mouth incident of the week. The rest of the route went without incident and we were up surprisingly quickly. I can’t remember clearly, but I think we might have done the gully as well that day!
The next day, Sunday, was a day of travel… and lugging the huge pile of kit and food up to the CIC hut. I’m not sure I could do that now! The next day dawned bright and perfectly windless and for my third consecutive February at the CIC, it looked we might be in for a treat after two previous pretty wild stays there. To my considerable shock, Tony declared that the first route out of the hut was going to be Point Five!
I have to admit I was a bit taken aback, but I thought that even if I had to just second the whole thing, at least I’d get my dream winter route done in better conditions than I had anticipated. Arriving at the bottom we had pole position and the next parties were well below us in the coire. To my own surprise. I even led the first pitch. However – these were the Dachstein days! This was also the first “Absolutely Crippling Bastard Hotaches” day! Oh how I wept!
We continued to swing leads and I was relieved, when it was Tony’s turn, when we arrived at the crux pitch. It was a steep little tinker, but the ice was fabulous. We were both up in no time.
The gully eased as we pitched the next few hundred feet. The final pitch was disconcerting. The anticipated windslab area below the cornice was alternating layers of sun crust and graupel and it felt very unstable with no real way to avoid tackling it. I remember sinking axes to make a T-axe anchor; thinking that that small, careful action could crack the whole edifice loose. Everything stayed in place and Tony gently tiptoed up to the solid frost feathered small cornices above to top out safely. I was buzzing! It was an incredible afternoon on the summit – still breathlessly still and heaving with walkers and climbers all just soaking in an incredible day.
The next day, Tuesday, we did Zero Gully in incredible conditions. I remember it being less steep, but it felt less secure somehow despite the nearly perfect ice. Back then our ice screw game was limited!
Back on the summit, I couldn’t quite believe that I’d just climbed two of my young lifetime’s biggest dream routes. Back in ’83 they still carried a bit of an aura that made them seem out of reach for the Essex boy!
The Wednesday saw us on the Curtain. I remember Tony tackling the slabby first pitch. I set off up the second and I recall being very spooked by the surprising steepness of the ice. All went well though and T soon knocked off the third pitch By the fourth day both of us were well goosed. We had a bit of a rest day, getting up late and just went up into Coire na Ciste to dabble with some short steep bits of ice.
Friday found us at the bottom of the Orion Face. Next to us, Chris Bonnington and his pal: who was being “introduced” to winter climbing as far as I remember. I managed to get started on the first pitch before them and felt quite smug for all of 20 minutes! Chris soon caught up, though it was a bit off-putting to have someone else pacing me on that long, run out, respectably steep pitch. We managed to share belays fairly politely for the next few pitches till we got to the basin. Tony and myself had a butty at that point as we were safely lashed to the big knob, the only solid rock belay of the whole route while Chris set off up the Slab Rib. When his mate tried to follow there was a bit of a wobble. We managed to calm him down and see him up safely.
Tony led that pitch and soon we were on the moderate bulges leading to the ice cave. As I dragged myself inside to belay, I was terrified by the evidence of previous traffic which meant it consisted of a floor of deep granulated sugar walls like Gruyere cheese, punctured by innumerable tubes of every diameter of ice screw imaginable! Another crap belay One screw got almost a bite in the holes and I sat on my axes buried in the mush. That was fine as Tony followed up the pitch, but nerve wracking as he exited and set off up the steep traverse pitch on what looked like pretty thin ice.
Tony set off to tackle the pitch and the rope slipped out in dribs and drabs, clearly indicating some thought provoking climbing.
Far below a figure appeared finishing the usual crux pitch. Ads he got higher, I realised there was no rope – he was soloing. I called out to Tony to be aware he was there. A stream of muffled invective about what the F was he doing soloing this late in the day with a couple of parties above him floated back through the still air. A few seconds later there was a metallic clanking and a crab full of gear flew past the cave and down the ice towards the solo guy!
I yelled a warning and the chap dug in with his tools. The gear missed him by inches. This time a stream of Glaswegian invective flew up the route! More chuntering floated back from Tony and I yelled down an apology as Tony inched his way through the pitch. A few minutes later the solo guy arrived at the cave and I said that there was room for two inside so he could get a breather while my mate finished the pitch. The Wegie crawled in beside me and his initial slightly aggressive demeanour calmed down a bit. We were chatting away quite happily when he suddenly declared he had to move or he’d lose his nerve. Despite my protests he just went.
Within a few moments a furious shouting match erupted above me as Tony lost his cool with this random late start solo climber. For several minutes every shower of ice chips and snow seemed to have arms an legs attached! It was that terrifying feeling of knowing that my partner was going to fall and I was going to be plucked out of the cave like a blackhead! One of the scariest few minutes I’ve ever sat through! Suddenly quiet returned as suddenly as it had been disrupted. The guy had got past Tony without either of them coming adrift.
Early on the Saturday, before packing up, we shot out early to have a quick run up The Castle on Carn Dearg. This was a feature that intrigued me, with its huge snowy, slabby, avalanche prone apron and castellated headwall. If there was one week to take a punt at it, it had to be this week. It turned out to be a slightly spicier Grade 3 than we anticipated. We had judged the state of the snowy slabs correctly, but the headwall had a few technical surprises, which made us think! It went quite quickly all the same and we still managed to get down, packed and walk out to the dam before our car got locked in the wrong side of the forestry gate.
I was knackered but absolutely elated at what Tony had persuaded me to do on this trip. We even got home at a sensible hour that evening. Then the phone rang… and it was Phil. He fancied a day out on Sunday if I still had the energy for it. This time we found our way up to Hutaple Crag and got stuck into Curving Gully, which even then was a rarely climbed route. I think we even managed to do the bottom pitch which, even in the eighties, was almost never iced. It turned into another super spicy day, with Phil again tackling the tricky pitches.
I often look back to those few days and smile. I think I was probably grinning like a loon for a good month or more after that trip. It was a week that has never been equalled for me: not in the Alps, Peru or even on that Kenya trip. I’m sure it never will be, now that I’m getting so knackered and creaky, but I don’t need it to be. 😉