Snow holing on Ben Nevis

Page 3: What goes up, must come down

Both safely on the ridge side of the traverse, we began to climb. Well, I say climb, it's more like a hike up Jacks Rake. By this time we had about an hour or so of sun left and quite a bit of ridge to make our way up. Rob, although a gym addict and in theory considerably fitter than me, is quite a bit heavier and was also carrying a heavier rucksack, so by this point he was becoming seriously tired and his legs were starting to cramp up - not the best way to be when some parts of the ridge are a few feet wide with hundreds of feet straight down on each side. In all though it's an easy route, but there are some reasonably exposed bits. Probably about 3 or 4 short little stints that, if they were longer might have just about acheived a diff grade rock climb. I can't remeber the exact time we got to the top but the light was starting to ebb away. I took a few snaps with the camera, but due to poor light, a crap camera, and no tripod, they came out a bit shakey. We were above an inversion so spent a little time taking in the fantastic scenery, with the sun ending its day dipping into the Irish sea, above a carpet of cloud... ahh, if I was a poet I might have been drawn to words more inspired than, "fucking hell its cold, let's get this snowhole dug". But I'm not, so wasn't. We made our way down towards the tourist path up Ben Nevis and looked for a suitable place to dig our ice palace. It was early in season, so the snow wasn't as deep as we'd hoped, although we worked this into the equation when selecting our gear for the trip so had a backup plan up our sleves. After 15 minutes of real estate hunting when found a little snow field, in a gentle slope and decided it was about as good as it'd get so downed gear and got out the snow shovel. We started digging the snow hole, but the snow had a hard ice layer just under the surface so we had to smash it with the axes to get anywhere. After 30 minutes of digging and get hardly anywhere I was starting to become seriously cold, and was urging Rob to unleash the backup plan - we'd brought along the outer of his Hilleberge. It's easy to write how cold I was now I'm sat here in my mate's house, drinking a Fosters, listening to Kasabian with the fire roaring, but I was SERIOUSLY cold back then. All I could think about doing was lying down to have a sleep, and was pleading with Rob to just make do with the trench we'd dug and put the tent up over the top so I could get in my bag and warm up. He, in no uncertain terms refused because the trench wasn't big enough to fit the tent in proper, so would have left it vulnerable to the wind, which was by now picking up considerably. I continued to try and help out, but I was being slow and clumsy, and by the time we actually had the trench big enough for the tent I was absolutely wasted. We got the outer pitched and I climbed inside, unrolled my mat, pulled my sleeping bag out of its stuff sack and climbed in. I was hungry and in dire need and a warm brew, but was too tired to make one. I lay half asleep, still very cold. Rob got in the tent and I mustered the energy to get out every spare item of clothing I had and put it all on. I know this must sound really mellowdramatic, but it's how it was. I was cold. I remember having a quick chat with Rob about the ever increasing wind, and then he said he was just nipping outside... I remember thinking something about captain Oates, then fell asleep. I don't know how long I was asleep for, probably about an hour, but when I awoke, piss wet through with sweat, Rob was farting about outside. Turns out he'd got so concerened about the wind he'd gone and built a snow wall around the tent out of the wind slab. It was a good job he did, we latter found out that the wind hit 70mph that night. I was feeling a little better after my nap, and managed to make a brew and eat some tuna, but due to the fact I was now wet with sweat, had little to no chance of warming up again for the rest of the night. We both eventually fell asleep and woke to the same windy conditions, but now we were in a total whiteout. I admired Rob's handy work with the snow wall, which was very impressive - it looked like a proper dry stone wall made out of white rock. We then packed up the tent and began the walk down. A few hours later we got the the pub at the bottom, realised we'd left our wallets in the car and stared at the beer pumps with a face not dissimilar to that of my mums dog watching her carve the sunday roast. Rob suddenly burst into action, unzipping pockets at random until he pulle dout 6 quid in coins. "two pints of McEwans please". We rang a taxi to take us back to the north face carpark and drank our beers. Ahh, a proper Christmas adventure. Previous Page