An excellent adventure on Ben Nevis for Ken Applegate & Tony Shepherd
9 Dec 2010
The short daylight at this time of year combined with the weather conditions necessitated a 5am start! Walking up the Alt a Mhulinn by headtorch under a starlit sky is always evocative and with no wind and temperatures of about -10 Ken and I were eager to keep moving.
Our plan was to climb a route in the upper reaches of Coire na Ciste, on Comb Buttress, called Tower Face of the Comb. The route does not get many ascents and is one of the finest mixed routes on the mountain, taking an intricate line through impressive terrain with an Alpine feel. It was originally completed in 1959 by Smith and Holt and not wasrepeated for 25 years.
Conditions were good underfoot and we made easy progress up into the coire, finding a good spot to gear up and leave our sacks at the foot of Comb Buttress. Climbing without your sacks in winter is not always wise but the forecast was really good and moving with the freedom and flexibility that no sacks afforded was tempting. By this time, it was evident that there was a good deal of fresh powder snow making anything less than vertical very hard going.
Winter climbing is all about patience and perseverance and with that we were rewarded by establishing ourselves on the route proper. This was achieved after swimming through deep snow and an awkward pitch with a steep pull through an entry wall, followed by thin climbing leading to a sound belay. Ken made a fine lead up the next pitch, a superb groove giving Ben Nevis mixed climbing at its best.
Four more pitches of varied climbing, tenuous traverses across unconsolidated snow, steep walls, spectacular rock ‘windows’ and knife edged snow arêtes and we were on the summit of The Comb. A handshake and exchanges on how good the climbing was and the quality of the route reinforced the inner satisfaction we both felt. It was 5pm and but for the reflective light from the snow, all was dark, and we required a headtorch from then on. We safely descended Number 3 Gully to retrieve our sacks and make the long walk down the Alt a Mhulinn under a still sky. Fantastic!
