Rescued on Ben Nevis

I knew the climbing trip to Scotland was going to be an "experience" when half an hour up the motorway my climbing partner for the weekend, Geoff, started to play one of his American Christian folk song tapes on the stereo. I consider myself very tolerant when it comes to peoples beliefs having spent 7 years at a Catholic public school, 2 years of which I was a boarder and subjected to chapel once a day and twice on Sundays. Nothing, however, had prepared me for 8 hours of Geoff’s 5 tapes played repeatedly from Cardiff to Glen Coe.

I had met Geoff in the Alps on a Plas y Brenin course, and had climbed with him in North Wales on rock once before, but had never climbed with him in winter conditions.

We set out 2 days in succession to look for routes that were in condition during which Geoff showed that his walking fitness was far better than mine. Both of us were keen to bag as many climbs as we could in the few days we had available but the weather only provided thick powder snow. This not only made the walks in hard work, but also worried me a couple of times because of the avalanche danger particularly because Geoff seemed oblivious to it even when a fracture started to appear along one of the trails he was breaking ahead of me.

After a frustrating 3 days of doing no more than winter walking we decided to set out the next day in the hope of trying one route we both longed for, Tower Ridge. Geoff had developed a bad cough and since neither of us could sleep through it we agreed to set off for Ben Nevis rather earlier than originally intended and so we left the car at about 05:00 in the Golf Club car park and walked to the climb. The conditions were promising, and the crunch of good neve underfoot was satisfying until just above the CIC hut. Above here there had obviously been little freeze/thaw action and we were back to the all too familiar powder of the last 3 days. We started climbing the route at about 08:00, just as daylight arrived. Progress was painfully slow, although steady, as the climbing conditions were poor.

Geoff on Tower Ridge

By 16:30 we had climbed approximately 400m vertically, and about 1km actual climbing distance. As all the other climbers on the Ben were descending by this time, and because it would soon be dark I persuaded Geoff that we should try and find a way down the mountain. We had not even reached the greatest difficulties yet and were not far beyond half way up. We spotted a ledge beneath us and abseiled down to it, believing it to be a ledge that was in fact 100m further up the climb. We started to traverse along the ledge to find a way down, using ice axe belays in the snow. By the time we approached the end of the ledge it was pitch black, although the sky was clear.

Geoff was leading at this point, and we had swapped ice axes as his was currently being used as the belay. I suggested that Geoff might want to put his head torch on, and attach my ice axe to his person by its wrist loop. In his wisdom he decided that he did not want to waste his torch battery and that he was more comfortable without using the wrist loop. He traversed the last 20m of the ledge and tried to climb down, but without light he was unable to see where he was trying to plant my ice axe and he hit rock. With no wrist loop to secure the axe he fell about 20 feet, and lost my ice axe. Still with one axe, he tried to come back up but again fell. I was becoming concerned, as the only thing stopping him pendulum across the cliffs below us was a large bollard of snow that had formed at the end of the ledge, and a pendulum now would make for a real epic.

After waiting about 10 minutes for Geoff to gather himself, still belaying him to his axe, he asked me to lower him. I lowered him about 20m at which point he was to all intents and purposes safe, with just a walk down to the CIC hut. Unfortunately, since Geoff had been leading the last pitch, he had the main bulk of the equipment leaving me with just a few karabiners and slings. At this point he told me that he had placed a runner on the way down which prevented me from hauling the equipment up to my perch. Neither would it be possible for me to pull the rope up and throw it back down to him as he was not vertically beneath me but a whole rope length diagonally into the wind from me.

I tried to follow Geoff down, using my head torch, but the cliffs became too dangerous to continue the attempt, especially seeing as now a fall would deposit me at the base of the cliffs some 100 m below me. I climbed back to the ledge and tied myself to an ice axe, and pulled the rope up to sit on. Geoff shouted up to ask me if he should call the Mountain Rescue Team, and I agreed, as I could see no alternative. Even if I could fix the rope to the overhanging cliffs above me, it would not reach down the vertical drop below me. It had only reached the ground before because Geoff had been further along the cliff when he made his departure.

Geoff set off down to the CIC hut, about half an hour's walk away. By now the temperature was dropping, and running on the spot seemed inappropriate not to mention dangerous, so I emptied my rucksack and placed my legs in it. I ate my two Mars bars, put on all my spare clothing and waited. It must have been about -10 degrees as I sat there shivering in seven layers of thermal tops and jackets, four hats and scarves, two layers of thermal trousers, mittens, thermal boots and a rucksack. Grateful that I had made a last minute decision to bring a duvet with me that morning I started my long wait. It was now about 18:00.

At about 22:30 an RAF Search and Rescue helicopter started searching the area for me. Unfortunately it seemed to concentrate on the wrong ridge, but at about 23:00 I received a response to the distress signal I was sending by head torch. I thought that this would mean a wait of perhaps 2 hours at the most before rescue. The Lochaber MRT started their own search soon after, but they could not locate me. They shouted to me and I shouted back. They shone their torches around the cliffs and I shone mine at them and at myself. They fired 2 flares but could still not find me. The main problem was that Geoff had given them the wrong location on the cliff, as we had earlier thought we were on the ledge that was actually 100m above. Eventually they located me by throwing snowballs off the ridge, and listening for me shouting back up the cliff to tell them that they were hitting me. After about 50 snowballs landed round me the deputy team leader was lowered down to me on a 1500 feet rope. He asked me how I was, said "Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team at your Service", gave me a drink from his flask, clipped me onto the rope and lowered me the remaining 100 meters to Observatory Gully. It was now 0600 on Thursday 26/1/95, 22 hours after starting the climb, and 12 hours since I was left stranded on the narrow ledge. From here we walked to the CIC hut. We woke Geoff up and were then picked up by the RAF and flown to Fort William.

After filling in a form and giving a brief statement at the police station, we were driven to our transport where I promptly fell asleep (I had only had 3 hours' sleep in the previous 60 hours, and none at all for 36 hours). While I slept Geoff went walking up another mountain in Glencoe to be confronted by another rescue, though not ours this time. Somebody had fallen 800 feet whilst solo climbing. When I woke up in the evening I phoned home only to find that reporters had already been round to my home to interview my mother. The incident was reported in the Scottish Daily Express, Scottish Daily Mail, Western Mail and South Wales Echo. Geoff told me how he had felt God's presence helping us survive, although personally I thought Lochaber MRT and the RAF had more involvement. The next day we headed for home, stopping at a number of service stations for Geoff to check that it was only my name in the newspapers.

I told a friend in Cardiff about the incident. She had a good laugh and phoned her father who used to be the Lochaber MRT leader. He had a laugh and phoned the Lochaber MRT. A week later I found out through the reverse channel that Geoff had, in fact, slept for 2 hours at the CIC hut prior to telling anybody at the hut or calling the MRT!