Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal Volume 6 Number 6

The Observatory Ridge, Ben Nevis

by Harold Raeburn

INSATIABLE is the appetite of the modern, even of the modern mountaineer, for novelty. When one centre becomes an exhausted one, or he considers it so, he flies to pastures new. Latterly our Scottish mountaineers have apparently been falling into the belief that Scotland is one of these exhausted centres. We hear of their doings in Switzerland, the Tyrol, Dauphiné, or even in remote western lands such as Canada or Kerry. Desolation meanwhile has fallen on such exhausted centres as Skye and Arran. No more are the wondering and disgusted fishers in the smoke-room at Sligachan swept out by a spate of mountaineering maundering - as they consider it - and their fishy tales forced to hide their heads before the mute eloquence of the "big hob-nailers" and the long yarns of the 60-foot rope. No more do we read of doughty deeds done on the faces and in the gullies of the slabby granite peaks of Arran, and even Nevis is becoming deserted for lowly and obscure English or Irish rocks, with such outlandish names as creeks or reeks, arks and rakes, or similar harshly sounding titles. That Nevis at any rate is not quite yet an utterly exhausted centre is the purpose of this paper to show.

Ben Nevis from Carn Mor Dearg (W. Inglis Clark)

True is it that all the main ridges and buttresses have long been climbed and re-climbed up and down, traversed on to at various points, and ingenious schemes evolved for evading their main difficulties. Still, in the lower corrie are numbers of ridges and buttresses, not to speak of chimneys, left, each one of which looks capable of affording a good climb; and in the upper corrie two long ridges, the lower very little shorter than the North-East Buttress itself, afford interesting variations to the direct climb of the great north-east face.

[page 214]

The objection may be urged that these routes are not the plain and obvious ones to the summit of Nevis. No more they are - the obvious route is the path; but the objection is of no value to the genuine climber. One might as well say that the Zmutt or Furgg Ridges were not the obvious routes up the Matterhorn, but are they any worse as climbs for that?

In the photograph by Thomson, which appeared in Vol. III., and is again printed in this number, the two Observatory Ridges are well shown, giving evidence of their steepness by the absence of snow on their lower portions. The photograph by Clark, also given, shows the rocks more as I found them on the 22nd of June. At Easter this year a party of four S.M.C. members made an attack on the upper of the two; but after a three hours' contest, during which they mounted a bare 300 feet, were forced to beat a retreat. The conditions were certainly adverse. Deep loose snow in the corrie was replaced by slabby rocks covered with a glaze of ice, over which swept hissing streams of loose snow from the upper regions. The steepness was such that in places handholds as well as footholds had to be cut in the ice. Such climbing may not be very difficult, but it becomes a question of time and endurance, and the party decided that neither commodity would hold out. As it was, through various little circumstances, they did not dine that evening till 11 P.M. As one of the party on that occasion, the writer came to the conclusion that the lower or North-East Ridge would give later on not only a better climb, but one considerably longer and better defined.

On the 22nd June the opportunity came of testing this theory. I was trysted to meet that evening on the summit of Ben Nevis, Dr and Mrs Inglis Clark. They had come fresh from battling with the elements on the rugged ridges of Skye, and flushed with the conquest of a new route on the "blue-grey stone" of the Eastern Coolins, to finish their trip by doing the most of the Nevis climbs in two days.

[page 215]

Thanks to the new Mallaig Railway, a train now leaves Edinburgh at 4.30 A.M. which deposits one at Fort William before 10 o'clock, so that by 10.30 I had left the Alexandra behind and had set face towards the familiar slopes of Meall an t-Suidhe.

I had failed on short notice to find a companion for the day, so was forced to go solus. One advantage of this, however, is that there is no one to "force the pace," so that rests can be indulged in as much as one is inclined for, and leisure afforded to study the natural surroundings. Deviations from the direct path are also permissible, and accordingly I deviated in order to visit the nesting rock of a pair of buzzards which earlier in the season were building here. They were unfortunately not about to-day, but I hope may have escaped the fate too often meted out to these interesting and practically harmless birds at the hands of the £. s. d. game-trader. The weather, which had been close and warm in the morning, became threatening as I entered the great corrie, and soon after down came the rain in real Nevis style. It did not last long, however, and as I gained the foot of the Observatory Ridge, the mists began slowly to roll up their filmy curtains - magnificent transformation scenes of gleaming snowfields, jagged ridges and pinnacles, black frowning cliffs, and long white deeply receding couloirs, coming into view as the visible circle gradually widened.

In my opinion these is nothing finer in all "braid Scotland," lovely Lakeland, or rugged Skye, to surpass or even equal the splendid north-east face of our highest mountain. There was still an immense amount of snow in the corrie, and my way lay for a time over the rugged miniature seracs of old avalanche remains; then slanting upwards I traversed a steeply sloping snowfield which abutted against the foot of the ridge.

The bergschrund here was fortunately neither deep nor wide. Had it been of a similar character to that which our party encountered on the following day (see present number, p. 228), 30 to 40 feet deep and 8 to 10 feet wide, it would have proved impassable in the absence of an ice axe and required circumvention.

[page 216]

The climb begins at no very severe angle, but on rocks distinctly slabby, and poor in holds and hitches. It almost at once becomes a well-defined arete, and higher up is bounded on both sides by very fine almost A.P. precipices. Throughout its whole length it affords less opportunity of deviation from the exact ridge than does its north-east neighbour. Perhaps at no point does it offer such an awkward bit for the solitary climber as the "man-trap" of the North-East Buttress - which can be escaped by descending a little on the right, or up a rather difficult chimney on the left - but I remember three distinctly good bits on it. First the slabby rocks near the foot. Then a few hundred feet up an excellent hand traverse presents itself. It is begun by getting the hands into a first-rate crack on the left, then toe-scraping along a wall till the body can be hoisted on to a narrow overhung ledge above. This does not permit of standing up, but a short crawl to the right finishes the difficulty, at the top of an open corner chimney, a more direct and possibly preferable route.

The third difficulty, and the one which cost most time is rather more than half-way up, where a very steep tower spans the ridge. I tried directly up the face, but judged it somewhat risky, and prospecting to the right, discovered a route which after a little pressure "went." This is a slightly sensational corner, as the direct drop, save for a small platform, is several hundred feet. This part occurs a few hundred feet below the termination of the black portion of the ridge as seen on Thomson's photograph.

The ridge now eases off and traverses show up as possible, either on to the North-East Buttress on one's left, or to the upper or South-West Observatory Ridge to the right. The gully on the left now holds heavy snowdrifts. The climbing, however, is far from over, numerous steep or slabby bits engage the climber's vigilance; but at length the last rocks are gained, where the crest of the ridge plunges under the great snowfield that girdles this face of the mountain, still at midsummer presenting in places icy cornices 20 feet high.

Ben Nevis, North-East Buttress and Tower Ridge from the north (Gilbert Thomson)

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Here I sat down after building the usual cairn - time 4.30, three hours from the bottom - to bask in the sun, which had been shining gloriously for the last hour, and to drink in the grandeur and beauty of the surroundings. These I fear are apt to be missed by the climber during the actual climb, especially if engaged by the problems that confront him when engaged on a new ascent.

But what is that note? A bird song strange and new! What could it be? There is only one possibility - it must be the snow bunting; and there sure enough it was, a splendid male in full summer plumage, singing sweetly, with utterly unbunting-like notes, from a rock projecting from the snow below the brow of the cliff.

But one must be an ornithologist to appreciate the pleasure of hearing for the first time the song of a bird hitherto only familiar as a winter visitor.

Though it be rank heresy to write so in these pages sacred to the cult of the mountains as "haunts of 'scansorial' feet" of men, yet I fear that if asked to say which of the two I would sooner have missed, the climb or the song, I might be tempted to say the first. However, no such invidious choice was forced on me, and the snow bunting's song was an additional pleasure to a most enjoyable scramble.