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THE mountaineer who makes his way up the Allt a' Mhuilinn, under the stern north precipices of Ben Nevis, sees before him, high up at the head of the valley, a steep black ridge jutting out against the sky, which seems grander and more precipitous than any of its neighbours. This is the N.E. buttress, the finest object on the mountain, and one of the last to engage the attention of the climber.
It was the last Easter Meet that brought this ridge into fame. From being an unnamed and unhonoured incident upon the cliff-face, it became an object of ambition to a large circle of climbers, the chief topic of the smoke-room at nights, and the focus of many critical glances during the day. It would also have been climbed had the ice upon the rocks not forbade the attempt; but though spared at Easter, it stood marked in the intentions of several parties, of which Tough and I formed one.
We had reconnoitred it from Càrn Mòr Dearg, and had come to the conclusion that, in spite of its formidable appearance in profile, and the presence of a sheer cliff one-third of the way up, it was less inaccessible than it was reputed to be. This, however, was more of a pious opinion than a reliable conclusion, for the ridge was enormously steep, and undoubted difficulties beset the path of the climber. Once on the ridge proper, however, above the bottom buttress, it seemed likely that the rest would "go."
And there the matter rested till the Queen's birthday arrived, the date of our projected expedition. The day seemed auspicious. It would be a graceful compliment to the Sovereign to open up a new slice of her dominions, and peradventure the heart of the West Highland Railway might be softened to a cheap fare. These thoughts were very stimulating while they lasted, but they "fled full soon." Cheap fares are only for Glasgow men. When we came to make our arrangements, that zest which is said to consist in triumphing over obstacles was vouchsafed to us in most bountiful measure.
It was either Tough or the West Highland Railway that refused to "fit in," - the point is still in dispute. But at any rate, owing to our utter inability to find a suitable train, it soon became manifest that if the ridge was to be climbed by us it must be done as the American ship-captain "did" St Peter's. That historical personage, as we all know, reached Rome in the morning, drove straight to St Peter's Piazza, went to the top of the dome, and returned by the first train after lunch to his vessel at the Civita Vecchia. His example is not usually commended for its strict conformance to the canons of mountaineering, but Tough and I had reached a frame of mind when, like good temper at 3 A.M., the canons had ceased to be binding. So we drew up the following original programme, which, as the more candid of its joint-authors remarked, would have been utterly repulsive as applied to anything but the N.E. buttress. It was arranged that we should travel to Kingussie by the night express on Friday, 24th May, bicycle thence to Fort-William, climb our mountain on arrival, and return by the same route, reaching town on Sunday evening. There was a certain gloomy satisfaction that we were doing something quite out of the common, which deepened in gloom as our arrangements waxed in originality. But I am anticipating.
Very grey and miserable was Kingussie when we reached it at 3.50 A.M. on Saturday morning. Rain was failing dismally, and a dense white mist hung low down on the sodden hillsides. Underwheel the roads were a fell compound of mud and newly-laid metal, over which eight miles an hour was superlative progress. Under beetling Craig Dhu, past Clunie, past lone Laggan Bridge, and I may skip forward to the point when, after one or two hours' weary pedalling, we were crossing the watershed of Scotland. Here the sun was making a feeble demonstration, but its rays passed almost unnoticed in the moral gloom which now fell upon the expedition.
It came about in this way. We had just topped a stiff brae, when a sudden report, resembling the simultaneous opening of six bottles of "Bouvier," was followed by Tough's despairing cry, "Your tyre's punctured." It was too true, and, what was still more exasperating, nothing would mend it. To this day my Norfolk tells of the cementing abilities of a sticky confection, which Tough produced from his rucksack, and of the lavishness with which we applied it. Very sorrowfully, after an hour's abortive tinkering, I pushed my now useless machine to the Loch Laggan Hotel (three miles), whither Tough had already, preceded me, and where we expected to find a horse and trap to carry us on to Fort-William. Vain expectation! The zoological resources of Loch Laggan Hotel are rich in midges, but include nothing distantly resembling a horse; so we had to face a walk of thirteen miles to Inverlair, under a sun which was now something more than genial. I believe I could make literary capital out of that walk, - out of the glory of the sunshine, as it fell upon the blue sparkling loch, the fluttering birch trees, and the gaunt grey corries of Creag Meaghaidh, - but our whole souls were fixed, not upon these splendid sights, but on an ingenious contrivance we had hit upon for saving time and muscle. Tough mounted the remaining bicycle, with a pyramid of ropes, axes, and rucksacks piled up on his shoulders, while his fellow-traveller half-walked, half-trotted alongside. In this order, with an occasional change of parts, when the pedestrian became (or said that he was) exhausted, we straggled to Inverlair, and completed the rest of the journey comfortably by train.
The day was close and sultry when, after a hurried lunch at the Alexandra, we left Fort-William at 1.12, and, swinging past Bridge of Nevis and Claggan farm, breasted the steep grass slopes of Carn Dearg - those grass slopes of painful memory. The extraordinary behaviour of even the best mountaineers upon a steep grass slope has often been remarked. They breathe heavily as if their lungs were in difficulties; from their foreheads well fountains of moisture that has been mistaken for sweat; they watch each other furtively, and when one sits down to admire the view, down flops the other as if he were glad of the rest; the trouble of adjusting a bootlace seems more tolerable to them than all the joys of ascending. Almost you would think they were not enjoying themselves.
Tough and I, it must be confessed, exhibited some of these above-noted symptoms, which continued more or less uninterruptedly till we began the descent into the great cleft of the Allt a' Mhuilinn. Here we sat down for the hundredth time, and made an earnest study of our ridge, which descended in profile before us little more than a mile distant. It was a sight to rejoice the heart of the most blasé ridgebagger. Seen from this standpoint, the lower portion appears to consist of an almost perpendicular bastion, which terminates in a well-marked platform, to which a steep gully leads up on the west side. Above the platform the rocks rise practically sheer for several hundred feet, and then ease off to a slope of about 45°, which continues, with a tendency to increase, till the foot is reached of another straight pitch, about a third of the height of the previous one. From certain points this pitch actually overhangs, but from others it shows an angle which is not greater than 60° or 70°. The top portion is an easy slope, merging almost imperceptibly in the summit plateau.
From what we now saw, the views formed at Easter were for the most part confirmed, except that the ridge seemed steeper than our recollection of it, and the straight pitches more absolutely perpendicular. Perhaps, however, this was partly due to the sudden approach of bad weather, which threw the black rocks into yet, blacker gloom, and made them tower up at an angle which was positively fearsome.
Loud peals of thunder had been rolling harmlessly among the hills since noon, but now the blackness that had been lying in the horizon rose high towards the zenith and threatened to cover it. The Red Mountains were still clear and sunny, but round the flanks of Carn Dearg the mist came stealing, - at first in mere wisps of vapour, then in great smoke-like masses, which mounted to the topmost crag, and blotted out nearly the whole mountain. In ten minutes there was scarce anything to be seen but the scree slope on which we stood, and a black swirling mass straight ahead, where the storm clouds were eddying round the crags of the four great ridges.
The walk up the Allt a' Mhuilinn is grand and impressive under any circumstances, but in such weather as this it is unspeakably weird. We passed jutting headlands of black naked rock, and receding rifts in the cliff-face from which the winter snow gleamed cold and ghastly out of the gloom. The stream we were following dashed in cataracts over its stony bed, fed by torrents the far-off murmur of which came floating down from unknown heights upon our right. Next we entered a wilderness of stones and boulders, littered with the Observatory debris, - tin cans, biscuit boxes, and paraffin barrels. Beyond is the steep frowning basement of the north-east buttress, and this we reached at 5.30. The weather had now reached what Mr Campbell (quoting Milton) describes as "in the highest heights a higher height." Even a native might have praised it. For ten minutes the rain descended with a straightness that would have been creditable in furrows at a ploughing match. Then the mist that had been scudding gaily among the higher crags came down to share in the fun. Crouching behind a stone we saw our visible world fade away into a murky circumference of twenty feet broad, beyond which the wall of the buttress, not fifty yards off, was totally concealed. Early in the day there had been some awful penalties laid upon the man who should breathe even the word "retreat," but now we shamelessly discussed it in all its bearings. Providence, however, had a better, or at, least a higher, fate in store for us. Quite suddenly the deluge of rain ceased to drench us, and the mist, having bamboozled us long enough, betook itself to higher realms, showing our climb towering, crag over crag, above us - an inspiriting sight. There was no longer any talk of retreating, though we could see that the enormous quantity of rain that had fallen would greatly increase the difficulty of the climb. Not even in Skye have I seen rocks so wet. There was quite a respectable waterfall coming off the ridge, and innumerable smaller ones that in England would draw hosts of worshippers.
We had the choice of attacking the bottom bastion either from the east or west, but we unhesitatingly chose the eastern route, which is quite simple, and seemed to offer a convenient approach to the greater difficulties above the first platform. Up to that point it is literally a walk, but when we had crossed to its extreme south-west corner the real climbing began. We put on the rope (time 6.15), and for sixty or seventy feet followed the broken crest of a nice little ridge which abuts against the steep face of the buttress, just underneath a lofty and, as we thought then, unclimbable tower. Here there is a choice of routes. To the right runs a broad ledge (in Cumberland a rake), while to the left a long straight stone-shoot follows the line which in our previous reconnaisances we had judged to be best. We therefore followed the stone-shoot, which led us through a succession of small chimneys and gullies, and out upon a sloping grass ledge, till we could climb up to the right to a level space (called the second platform), where we built a small stone man. Crossing this platform, which is a mere cup scooped out of the rock, we struck the ridge proper immediately above the unclimbable tower, and commemorated the fact with another modest cairn.
Here the really interesting work may be said to begin, for the ridge is fairly narrow, and, besides being very steep, is broken into all the delightful incidents of this form of mountain architecture. There are little towers up which the leader had to scramble with such gentle impetus as could be derived from the pressure of his hobnails upon his companion's head. There are ledges (not very terrible) where it is convenient to simulate. the grace of the caterpillar. A sloping slab we found too, where the union of porphyry and Harris tweed interposed the most slender obstacle to an airy slide into the valley.
On the whole, I believe the rocks to be comparatively easy; but under the then conditions, what with the rain and the wearied state in which we approached them, they seemed distinctly difficult. It was most exasperating to find, whenever a friction grip was necessary, how persistently one's sodden knickers and boots kept slipping on the wet bossy rocks, and how unreliable was the hold thus obtained.
Nowhere was this more apparent than when, having climbed up as we thought to within a few hundred feet of the top, a steep little bastion, with rounded top and smooth unbroken face, loomed up out of the mist. It was crowned by an erection which in the fog, which was again closing thickly round us, might have been the Eddystone lighthouse, but which I have reason to believe is a "peeler" of very moderate dimensions. Under ordinary circumstances we would have got up it I think without special difficulty, but a small crack about ten feet up (which is the natural hold) was at that moment extemporised for the descent of a miniature shower-bath. The result was that, perhaps without giving the crack a fair trial, we preferred to try the slabby rocks on the left. 'Twas a most dismal error. These slabby rocks are the man-trap of the ridge. They look quite simple, and are quite the reverse. I stood in the gap under the bastion, and payed out the rope, while Tough, as leader, amused himself among them for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Judging by the movements of the rope, and the vigorous adjectives that reached my ears, the game was more energetic than amusing. At length, after a period of indefatigable energy, Tough rejoined me. The rocks would not "go;" and if ever a charge of positive immorality was brought against a rock problem, it was involved in the emphasis with which the chief guide described how he had innocently swarmed up a nice little gully, and become spread-eagled for ten minutes on a smoothly sloping slab that looked positively alluring from below.
Meanwhile the daylight had been ebbing slowly away. It was now 9.45. Over the gaunt grey rocks the darkness of night had settled down, rendering our position inexpressibly weird and eerie. To me it seemed that the only alternative was to bivouac where we stood; but the chief guide, while frankly admitting that two inches of nose represented his own limit of vision, drove me at the point of his axe to explore the rocks on the right. They "went" quite easily. Up a short gully we raced and panted to the foot of a steep smooth corner about 40 feet high, formed by the junction of two rock slabs. Here, when I mildly suggested the absence of reliable holds, the inexorable guide gave me the choice of going up at the point of his ice-axe, or by pure traction at the end of the rope, along with the luggage.
I chose the former; and such was the mute eloquence of that pick end, pointing upwards out of the gloom, that I succeeded at length in struggling to the top, although the holds are not exactly suited to sustain in the darkness the gravity of 11½ stones over a nearly perpendicular precipice. At the top we could see the way stretching easily before us, and a dim black object standing up against the darkened sky that looked every inch the top. Abandoning the ridge to save time, we dashed into a stone-shoot on the left, and went rapidly up it to the foot of a final line of crags about twenty feet high. Again we thought we were stuck, but a friendly gully, running up the centre, extricated us from our difficulties, and, brought us out at the summit of the mountain, almost level with the Observatory.
Volumes have been written upon the sensations of mountaineers upon finishing a stiff climb; but we simply gave a long shout of triumph, which was taken by our friends the meteorologists as a warning that some very noisy trippers were approaching, and marched for the Observatory.
This we reached at 10.5, and were received with the overflowing hospitality the Club has always received from Mr Rankin and his staff. Very grateful was the warmth and shelter, the glowing stove, the steaming coffee, after the long battle on the porphyry crags. All too short, however, was the hour of sleep, which we snatched between twelve and one, undisturbed by even a thought of what we had passed through. Then came the descent to Fort-William, under a sky which was now calm and serene. The misty curtain was drawn aside, and all around lay the slumbering hills. What mattered it that Bidean nam Bian was indistinguishable from Buchaille Etive, and that the most resolute attempt to identify Stob Ban resulted in mental entanglement among the corries of Sgòr a Mhaim. We took it on trust that Bidean was there, with his darkened crest thrust through the great sea of mist which lay fathoms deep in the valleys, forming islands and archipelagos, capes and peninsulas, out of the spurs and ridges of the hills. Lower down we plunged into the mist ourselves, and when we emerged from it again the morning sun was shining upon the houses of Fort-William and the waters of Loch Eil. It was the dawn of another day, the third since we had left Edinburgh.
At 4 A.M. the mail-gig for Kingussie numbered us among its passengers. Speyside saw us five and a half hours later; and Edinburgh and the Editor welcomed us at 6.15, after forty-five hours of continuous travelling.
NOTE. - Since the above article was written a note in the current number of the Alpine Journal recording an ascent of the buttress by Messrs J. E. and B. Hopkinson, on the 6th September 1892, has come under my notice. No particulars are given, but it appears that the ascent formed one of several made by the same party, including the ascent and descent of the Tower Ridge and the outlying pinnacle at its base. It is only necessary to add, with reference to certain statements contained in the foregoing article, that no suspicion that the ridge was other than a virgin peak ever occurred to us, or any one in the district, or having knowledge of the mountain, with, whom we conversed. Subsequent to our ascent the ridge has been climbed several times. It was ascended, eight days later, by Messrs Geoffrey Hastings, Howard Priestman, and Cecil Slingsby, who were likewise ignorant of the previous ascents till they encountered our first cairn. This party introduced a difficult variation below the first platform, gaining that point from the west by a steep gully, which, being much in need of cleaning, gave considerable trouble. On 8th June, the buttress was again ascended by the Messrs Napier and Green, who patented still another variation by forcing a way up the steep rocks to the left of Slingsby's couloir. Both parties seem to have turned the unclimbable tower by the broad ledge, or rake, on the west side of the ridge.
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