A Mountain Day, from Sunrise to Sunset

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,

Swiftly, fly the years,

One season following another,

Laden with happiness and tears

Jerry Brock

The small dark hours of an early January morning. Leaning over carefully so as not to awaken Fiona, I pull back a curtain, just a chink, and I see bright twinkling stars and hoar frost over cars parked outside. My night has been restless. Fear and anxiety about what I might do with this day. Then at times a light slumber and calm, as I think, no, I will just have an easy day at home.

Mind games. Somewhere deep I had already decided what I was going to do. But my gremlins were scaring me out of it. My human put the chimp back in its place when I pulled back the curtain and saw the stars and frost as I could already feel the mountains calling. Anxiety for survival, and taking risks to live life fully. The solo climber’s paradox.

Sliding out of warmth and safety, creeping quietly down to hastily eat something with a coffee. A prepacked rucksack. Planning or precognition? Had I subconsciously decided what my plan was? But to sleep perhaps I needed to know I wasn’t going to follow through.

A note is left. “Gone up Stob Corrie. Just some easy climbs. Back midafternoon. Parking at Pipers Layby.”

The Pipers

Our car is frosted, but the newspaper covering the screen comes off clean. In some fateful irony the inside page was covered in details of a mountain tragedy a week before, where a roped party had fallen. Tom Patey the ardent soloist had a definition of a roped party as being two people falling together. A quick key turn to start the car, reverse out, and a short blind drive away from the house to do a proper scrape and defrost, then I am on my way up the glen. It’s bitterly cold, and sunrise is still a couple of hours away. Perfect.

The short drop down from the car park to the bridge begins to warm my legs, ready for the toil ahead. That long grind up, with the East face of Aonach Dubh and memories of lazy warm days on easy classic climbs made by an earlier pioneering generation. And some harder climbs where more boldness was required. At my back, the Aonach Eagach and its siren call in winter, plastered in snow and inviting me to a mini alpine adventure. Tempting, but not the day plan on the note I left of where I am going. I will climb some routes. I will decide which ones, if any when in the Corrie.

Across the burn and a last slog up into the Corrie by following the burn outline in the glow of a headtorch, watching for the buried lochans. You could be forgiven for thinking you were on an alpine adventure where a crevasse might eat you up, but in this case soak you and kill you from hypothermia. Into the Corrie proper as the light changes subtly from night to not quite day. I see Boomerang gully just catching some light at its top. Crampons on, axe in hand I plodded up in soft snow for a bit then hit perfect snow ice in the gully. I love moving fast using my fitness which is hard earned from days cutting trees, running, and racing my road bike. The former to earn a living, the latter purely for getting fit for moving fast on days like these. Also, for stamina, as when my climbing day ends, my rescue night might sadly begin when a call comes to get the team out. It’s a fine line between warmed up and fucked.

I go up Boomerang fast, reaching a very short snow ice steepening, then onto a shoulder, reaching it as the sunrise hits me. Everything turns dark orange. I stop and look around at the now lit up summits and take in this atom of delight. I could be summiting Everest, Denali or any famous giant, but I don’t need to think that way, because it’s not about imagining greater ranges. It’s pure delight that I live here, this is home, and this is sublime. It’s more than enough for me. Some of the time.

I plod up to the summit and take in the views, then drop down to the top of Broad gully then down into the still cold and brightening Corrie. I can see other headtorches on the way up the path now, and it’s getting lighter. Before more folk arrive and get on the popular climbs I decide Forked gully right hand should be next, and on good snow ice quickly ascend through the ice pitch onto the ridge then back climb down the left fork until I come across the trough carved out by climbers traversing below the climbs on the previous days. I then go up into Twisting gully and find it has good ice not hacked to bits by other ascents, so I quickly go up and across its steeper bit, then crampon up to the cornice which has a slot cut in it. I’m back on the ridge again and the air is clear and the light bright. I can see my house still frozen in the village fridge as we get no winter sun, and the house will now be stirring with breakfast being made. It’s a reflective moment. Am I selfish up here on my own?  Yet this is who I am. That brings responsibility too. Don’t fuck up being the main thought.

Coire nan Lochan

Pondering this, I go down the ridge to the top of NC gully and back climb down, then traverse across to Central Buttress, then across into SC gully. I climb a long steep strip of snow ice on bomber axe placements, move across the ice pitch onto a ramp, then climb up into the narrow steep confines of the upper gully. Steep calf aching cramponing to just below the gully rim where there is a cornice. Standing below this pondering the best way, with a big death drop below focuses all the chimps in my paradox. I decided to traverse left up to an easing angle where South Central Buttress joins and where there is a smaller cornice. Both axes planted shaft first, over the top with a heave I am up and safe.

I sit on a rock and ponder for a bit. I have the physical energy for one more climb, but I don’t have my head in the game anymore. All the chimps have been silenced. I have quietude.  I think - finish early and get home to the family.  I make my way down the NW ridge into the Corrie and meet many people whose climbing day is just about to start as my one ends. They will have a good day and good sport as the routes are at the top of their guidebook grade not banked out by very much snow yet.

Central Gully IV4 ScRBeith

Winter climbing is a funny old game. It’s tough but rewarding, and unforgiving if you don’t learn to heed what the mountains in your mind and in front of you are telling you. “Discretion is the better part of valour” is a truth. Sometimes like this day, the mountains let you in, other days they spit you out. Wising up to this can give a lifetime of adventure or a lifetime of hurts. There is nothing quite like it.

Down home to a busy household of young children, warmth and safety. Most of the afternoon still ahead and time for walk with the family before the early dusk and winter darkness sets in. On a frozen loch snow angels are made in the hoar frost, and another atom of delight as I observe family happiness while also still feeling the satisfaction of feeding the climbing rat that some of us are afflicted with. Until the Rat moves to a different home. Thats rare. 

Rebekah Gunn

Just as the sun sets and darkness arrives, and I feel relaxed, the radio goes, it’s the team leader calling us out to a fallen climber on Stob Coire nam Beith somewhere in the region of NW or Summit gullies. Pre mobile phone coverage in the glen, the fallen climbers friend had to run all the way down the steep path to the Elliots cottage to get help. I quickly get ready, grab my kit and go across to the A82 where another team member stops and gives me a lift. Others pass and collect our rescue van from Hamish MacInnes’s house at Achnacon. We get to the Elliots where I meet the fellow who has come down to get help. His friend has a badly broken ankle from having fallen with crampons on, and as they dug in broke his ankle and dislocated it. The van arrives and the police with it. It seems a helicopter is due in 55m. As its not life-threatening folk decide to wait for a lift up. I’m amped up, so grab a medical gas bottle and splint and take off up the path into the Corrie. Saving a bit of energy earlier in the day, and after lots of food when home I felt quite good. Tired, but it is amazing how long you can sustain an aerobic threshold and reasonable pace when trained. Its quite a mindful and satisfying feeling as your body burns fat for energy. Probably a remnant of our hunter gatherer past from chasing game across savanah for days.

I made it to the casualty at the foot of the first ice pitch in NW gully in about 55m just as the helicopter arrived below at the base. I gave the casualty some pain relief gas, then re located the ankle with a satisfying clunk, straightened out the leg, and put on a good splint. I had direct radio contact with the team and helicopter. The helicopter flew straight up, dropped down the winchman who double stopped the casualty up and away to the Belford Hospital Fort William. Then it was a slow tired walk back down to the base and home again. Two hours start to finish, home in time for tea with the family.

I later fell asleep in a chair until two in the morning. Tired

Sunset over the Cullin