An ‘Eye-full’ Tower

Friday 28th to Sunday 30th July 2006

The gang:
Dave Carrier
Andrew Eccles
Richard Kendrick
Brain Harrington

 

Three of us left York late on Friday afternoon heading north to meet up with Rich in Fort Bill; well Achintee Farm in Glen Nevis to be precise. The plan was to do one of the easier ridges on Ben Nevis (Tower Ridge, Castle Ridge or Ledge Route), weather permitting and ‘bag’ some Munros, so Andy can fill in some more ticks on his wall chart.

Saturday’s weather report had us chasing the sunshine north and west towards Glen Shiel and our start near Croe Bridge. We were not to be disappointed as the weather stayed true to form and we had an excellent walk onto the summit of Beinn Fhada (1032m) via the broad ridge of Meall an Fhuarain Mhoir and back to the starting point via our second Munro of A’Ghlas Bheinn.

After a 9 hour day in the wonderful Scottish mountains, a pint of Scotland's ‘worst’ was beckoning in the Kintail Lodge Hotel at Shiel Bridge. Our weather chasing plans for the next day were in ruins as the MWIS report for Sunday in the West Highlands was for blue skies and light winds. It just had to be Tower Ridge on ‘The Ben’.
 

A hastily arranged bunkhouse at Invergarry Lodge (only one room left I’m afraid and you’ll have to share it with some girls) followed by the fastest drive ever known to man. This bunkhouse is definitely one of the best.


Sunday morning broke; the weather forecast was spot on. We made our way to the Glen Nevis car park and apart from having to put up with Kendrick’s non-stop moaning about the tourist path and why we shouldn’t be taking this route, we got to the CIC Hut in 2 hours via the Half Way Lochan.

Now, I’ve never been to ‘The Ben’, let alone the north face, but what a fantastic mountain viewed from this side. A further slog up the scree brought us to the Douglas Boulder and the start of the route, except we all managed to miss the proper start, so we ‘blagged’ our way up the steep, rocky, loose scramble to the ridge proper. It was during this little side sortie that I managed to dislodge a boulder the size of wheel hub-cap down onto the unlucky souls beneath. Drat, just managed to miss.

We geared up once on the ridge and split into two teams of two, using a proficient ‘moving together stylie’ sort of climbing, between some fantastic pitches on to Little Tower, then onto the Great Tower via the Eastern Traverse and finally the infamous Tower Gap.

Oh the Tower Gap! “Just walk along the crest, drop down to the right, squirm into the gap and climb out using the direct route” they said. With 500 meter drops on both sides, f**k that. I’ll go my own way, resulting in the Tower Gap (Carrier’s eliminate HS, 4b).

We finally scrambled through the swirling cloud and on to the summit to be greeted by sandal wearing, tee-shirt clad tourists ‘gufforing’ at our achievement and wondering whether we were actually human.
 

There was now only one thing left; get off the mountain sharpish and into the pub for a slap up meal, several pints, followed by a long drive back home (Rich K the exception, as he had more jaunting to do).
 

A great weekend. The best mainland big-route climb, bar none. I would highly recommend it to anyone. The only thing left now! Let’s do it in winter conditions.

 

Yours truly,

Dave Carrier