Around Glen Nevis By Hilary Clark

An article from our club magazine achive on the Tranter round, Scotland

In 1967 Bill had sent me a copy of the Scots Magazine and had written on it 'Have a look at page 427.' I found there an account of Philip Tranter's circuit of Glen Nevis. It was a remarkable achievement. He had started at Polldubh in the glen, climbed onto the end of the long Mamore ridge to the south and walked along the whole length of this. He then crossed the watershed some seven or eight miles up the glen, ascended the ridge of the Grey Corries to the north, and traversed this back to finish on Ben Nevis, and thence down to Polldubh. He reckoned the route was thirty-six miles with twenty thousand feet of ascent.

Bill knew that I would want to repeat this exploit. I, for my part, recognised eagerly that this could be tried alone if I could not find a suitable companion; it was not like the Cuillin Ridge where a rock-climbing partner was essential.

Nevertheless, I had not the courage to set out alone on so big an undertaking, without moral support from friends in base camp.

The next year Bill, Margaret and I contrived to meet in Glen Nevis. We arrived on a mid-summer Saturday for the great walk. I had persuaded Julian to join me; he was in his early twenties, the climber whom I met in Skye, a strong walker and usually game for a mad expedition.

We had planned that Julian would start on the Mamores, myself on Ben Nevis, going the opposite way from Philip Tranter, though the battering of showers on the tent whilst we cooked our lunch made us query the wisdom of going separately. But by this time it was too lare to go together; I would be an hour behind schedule if I were to start first so that we could arrive together on the first top to begin the ridge. So we adhered to our original plan. walking together only the first few hundred yards up the road from the camp at Polldubh, Julian to go up the Mullach nan Coirean and I to go up Ben Nevis, by Allt Coire Eoghainn, the burn that comes down to the car park at the end of the road.

It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when we started and this way up the Ben was easy to find, though it rained a little and at eight-thirty there was mist on the deserted sum-

mit, where snow still lay over the boulders. Mist and solitude added their own dimensions to the grandeur of the place.

It was six years since I was last on the Ben but I remembered the posts that marked the way down, ensuring a safe start for the descent of a thousand feet to the ridge above the huge cliffs of Coire Leis. The half mile up the Carn Mor Dearg arête needed hands occasionally, and it seemed a long scramble alone in the evening light. The ridge then leads off Carn Mor Dearg towards the Aonachs, becoming wider at the bottom but very steep, but facing me was a daunting twelve-hundred-foot ascent to Aonach Mor. Surprisingly this route proved to be up near-vertical, boggy, tufted grass, very pleasant and easy to climb, from step to step as up a staircase.

It was quite dark and misty when I reached the top of the Aonach ridge, at eleven. I walked hopefully up the grassy plateau towards Aonach Mor, but could not find the cairn. There was nothing for it but to don all my pullovers, sit down and wait - and no sooner had I done this than the mist blew off, and there was the cairn a few yards away.

The top of Aonach Beag was white with snow, and here again the cairn was not to be seen. After falling on a patch of ice I was afraid to explore further in the dark and the mist, because of the treacherous snow cornice overhanging the top of the cliff, so I sat down and

waited for an hour for daylight at about three o'clock.

It is quite a long walk off Aonach Beag, and the map shows a sharp drop at the end. but the place was not obvious and I set off down to the left too soon.

The grass slope became riskily steep and petered out in little bluffs and slabs. Deciding not to invite a fall, I went back up to the ridge where a feasible route at last appeared.

The Grey Corries were unexplored ground to me and their long, undulating ridges seemed tedious, maybe because persistent rain made the grey places seem even greyer. I pushed on. The first big top is big and rounded and reddish, and the others follow on with huge, grassy, grey slopes between them. I was now tired enough to let my attention wander, and hot from the exertion of hurrying up and down hill. It is always a problem to decide what to wear. I get hot and bothered if I wear too many clothes, and to the amusement of my friends like a short-sleeved shirt in almost any weather. What if it rains? Usually I find it is best to get wet. If it is going to rain all day I shall get wet anyway; and after a short shower I shall soon be dry. Or perhaps I combat the rain with only a cagoule or anorak, and then when I reach the tops it may suddenly get windy and cold; if I take the anorak off the rain will chill my bones as I fight the gale for control of the pullover I try to put on; again and again I have left it too late to dress up.

That day, in anorak, on the last of the Grey Corries, I used a compass to find the way down. There were deer on the col as I crossed Stob Ban and it was still raining. Here, there was a chance I would meet Julian coming the other way. It was ten on Sunday morning and I thought once that I heard him when some stones hurtled down as I contoured below the loose screes, in order to climb Stob Ban by the safer north-east ridge.

I shouted. Silence.

"Sheep," I thought, "not Julian."

At eleven-thirty at the lowest point of my route, namely Tom an Eite, near the watershed between Water of Nevis and the river that runs east to Loch Treig, I stopped for half an hour by the wide shallow stream and made cold coffee in the plastic bottle I had found on the top of the Ben - I had forgotten my mug. Here the decision had finally to be made whether or not to go on.

According to plan, I had left a note on Stob Ban 'Intending to go on the Mamores,' so that, in case of accident, my friends would know which ridge to search. The long Mamore ridge seemed formidable, but I had faced this challenge before I started. Nothing had happened on the first half of the walk to dictate a change of plan or to prevent my going on. I had not lost the map or the compass or myself - I had not got blisters, or suffered exhaustion, so there was clearly no good reason to stop, except that my schedule allowed fifteen hours for each half of the walk, and I was three-and-a-half hours late. I had said that I would be down at the camp during the next night, but I thought I could still make it in good time before rescue at noon next day.

The next top, Binnein Beag, is a beautiful, white, conical peak standing alone over the river; the sun almost struggled through the clouds and it was an easy, pleasant walk over the scree. My usual practice was to keep going between the tops and to stop for five minutes on each, to eat a little chocolate and glucose, and perhaps to look up the next part of the route. But on the long slog onto Sgurr Eilde Mor I succumbed to several rests, and, I think, had one or two catnaps. On this walk Sgurr Eilde Mor was the crux, the big ascent that takes all you have - like Elidir Fawr on the Welsh Threes - but once you are up, the remainder will 'go.'

The way off Sgurr Eilde Mor to the loch was very steep, down large, awkward screes; the ridge up to Binnein Mor looked difficult. I was disheartened and did not relish the prospect of clambering up over boulders. But there was a welcome surprise when I reached the loch, for a good stalkers' path zigzagged right up to the first shoulder and the ridge was broad and easy after that. I reached Binnein Mor and my watch said a quarter to seven.

The walk over Na Gruagaichean was uneventful, just a steady plod up and down. I was tired, as mountainers often are, putting one foot before the other almost automatically, but not yet overcome by the desire to sleep that belongs to the small hours.

An Garbhanach stood up above a deep bealach, a big shattered pile. Halfway down to this bealach, when I was off the path, I glimpsed a herd of goats standing by a rock. I came nearer and they did not move - strange! They were like the ghosts I had met on the Carneddau, just rocks seen through bleary eyes in the half-light. At the top of the rocks of An Garbhanach my watch said nine-thirty, and it was getting quickly dark as I came down and retraced my steps past the 'goats.'

The next top is Am Bodach and I crept up there with the torch. Under the first big boulder I lay down to sleep for perhaps ten minutes, and woke shivering in the wind and stiff from lying on the rocks. At the next more-sheltered boulder I again dropped asleep - for half an hour this time - dreaming fitfully that a party of children were passing by, and subconsciously aware that I could not rest for long, not even until they had all passed my bed. I woke to see the lights of Kinlochleven below. There is a splendid remoteness when you are alone on a mountain top in mist, but you lose this sense of isolation if you are looking down to the lights of civilisation.

The ridge was easy to see, and the torch was not needed, and I hoped to reach Sgurr a' Mhaim by day-break. But, behold, at two on Monday morning, before I started the Devil's Ridge, light came quickly and I was puzzled why nightfall and daybreak had been so early. Nevertheless, I reached Sgurr a' Mhaim in an hour; the glen below filled with thick mist, but the crests were touched by the sunlight and life seemed good.

Julian had also left messages on some of the top's, but I forgot to look for them, so I missed the one that said he had gone down to camp from there on Saturday night, discouraged after making too much haste and slipping badly. By now I was very thirsty and made good time returning along the ridge and cutting across the zigzags down to the lochan under the second, more famous, Stob Ban. Another bottle of coffee was soon made, but the water was too cold for me to drink much.

The path up the quartzite to Stob Ban is delightful, but it was here that I realised that my watch had been going by fits and starts. How much was I behind schedule? On Stob Ban the watch read four-thirty. By taking bearings on the sun I made it six. Would I be down so late that I would spoil the day for the others if they waited for me before setting out for the hills? Would I be down before noon when the rescue might be alerted? I must move quickly.

There is a long, fairly flat walk to Mullach nan Coirean, the last of the Mamore summits, and then a ridge down towards the glen. Part way down, where I entered the low-lying mist, at the upper edge of a forest, the direct line is down by a deer fence, on grass too steep for fast walking, too rough for back-sliding. I walked down slowly and carefully, and by now was looking for the others, for Bill had suggested coming to meet me, and they would now be awake - I felt sure it was after eight. But there was no sign of them until I had almost reached the road, when I saw the roofrack of my car go by and stop.

"Hello, there:" I called.

Out came the search party which I had just met in time.

"You've just saved me the walk up to Stob Ban," - the one at the head of the glen - "I'm not sure whether I'm glad or sorry," said Julian, looking quite disappointed that he was not to take part in an exciting search. It would have taken him perhaps six hours, there and back, to look for the note which would say whether I had started the Mamores.

"I was coming to look for you on the Mullach," said Bill, "but I'm glad you're back. These Scottish hills of ours are big - not like Wales - and I was worried when it was misty and we found your tent empty this morning."

"I was to go to the Youth Hostel to report you missing, at twelve sharp," said Margaret.

They, three fit mountaineers, had felt obliged to make some effort to find me before asking the rescue team to start a full-blown search. I had not thought of allowing for this. It was, in fact, nine o'clock when I reached Poll-dubh, forty hours after we had set out. I had seen no-one since leaving the road on Saturday afternoon. I still felt fit and able to carry on downhill or on the level, but I must have been beginning to suffer from dehydration, for my tongue was swollen and I did not want to eat. The decision to walk in a dilapidated pair of comfortable boots had proved right, and the minor sores and blisters they made had been no bother. That night, as I lay down in the tent, I thought nostalgically of the previous night's nap on the screes of Am Bodach. I did not know another thing, nor did I stir an inch, till I woke eight hours later.

Since that exhausting weekend I have asked myself whether it was safe to do so long a walk alone. Was it more or less risky than climbing the Bad Step on the Cuillin? I had felt, though I was not yet fifty, that I was too old to postpone such a big expedition to wait for a companion, or I might never have done it at all. If Julian and I had set out together, we should have been safer. We should have encouraged each other to go on, but he might have exhausted me by going too fast; or I could have tired him out by going too slowly and taking too long.

Why do I want to undertake big walks like the round of Glen Nevis? Why after this did I consider doubling the Welsh Threes? Town life does not provide enough challenge for me, in spite of the demands made by my job as a housing officer in times of perpetual crisis. There is satisfaction in route-finding, in not being afraid of goats or ghosts. There is great satisfaction in the physical effort of keeping going. I walk along reciting Kipling's poem 'If.'

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on...'

But above all there is the tremendous sense of belonging to the mountains, to all those fourteen peaks of the Welsh Threes, and to all the mountains around this wild, magnificent glen.