Munrogue

A close-up of my Route II/I line up the left-hand side of Carn Dearg's celebrated north-east buttress (Ben Nevis, Highland Scotland). My best live climb to date has been to descend the 200ft chimney in the top half of the photograph.

Gist

I am an amateur (in both senses) rock climber living in Inverness-shire, Scotland.

Links

http://bit.ly/12YejYr links here. In late 2013 I began blogging at http://munrogue.blogspot.co.uk.

My only Wikivoyage project to date is a full description of Ledge Route on Ben Nevis. As of mid-May 2014 this is textually complete with minimal photographs, but it could really do with a map. It is also under something of a cloud: one of the Administrators is "pretty sure we don't need two itineries about the same mountain," so it's been marked for deletion once the content (>3000 words) has been "merged" into the Tourist Route article. I might help with that myself if I can't think of anything better to do of a lazy Sunday, like shove hot needles into my eyes or something.

I contribute here and on Wikipedia. Here I also record my progress researching the easier lines around the northeast face of Ben Nevis. On Wikipedia I maintain a short list of handy sources about climbing in Lochaber, mostly organised as useful or memorable quotations.

Profile

I work as a kitchen porter in Lochaber. My main interest is in researching the north-east face of Ben Nevis (NN16197186) from the perspective of a good scrambler and perhaps competent climber. My ethic (ie aesthetic) is to use protection (ropes) to rehearse routes before climbing them free-solo. For this reason I rarely look at routes above Very Difficult. I even had a damn close shave on a Difficult route last year (LH Chimney on Douglas Boulder NW face) when, already committed and with no rope, I was forced (?) to make an unsafe and exposed move up in a greasy crack. Dicey. Maybe I was off-line, but I do wonder about that grade..

Other stuff I've done that might generate one or more articles includes:

Scrambles

In high season I tend to climb if it's dry and scramble if it's wet. Good damp scrambles on Ben Nevis are Castle Ridge, Tower Ridge, and Jubilee Corner, but:

The dry gully (southernmost) approach to Castle Ridge is best because the north wall routes are well-vegetated and pretty dicey in the wet. If you have time, consider spending some of it exploring the lower reaches of Castle Corrie and join the ridge by an obvious easy corner just below a steepening of the crest line. Higher up, the crux corner is harder in the wet because avoiding the lowest section by moving right is not safe.

Tower Ridge is usually gained by climbing the "tricky chimney" out of Douglas Gap, but this is quite awkward in the wet: the same point can be reached from the bottom of East Gully by a rising leftward traverse to a grassy bay and then an easy upward path to the right. If you fancy your chances at the gap, the approach up West Gully is much better sport with some memorably loose broken rock. Alternatively, 1934 route up Secondary Tower Ridge is an ideal wet route. It begins 50m right of West Gully and ends at the little tower (but in fact Secondary Ridge can be scrambled all the way to the top of Pinnacle Buttress where a only a rightward 'bad step' around the outlying final tower needs particular care). Secondary Ridge can also be reached by scrambling up the East Ridge (Moderate) of the Garadh and following Broad Gully leftward. Broad Gully is very late to clear of snow, as is Raeburn's Easy Route, so both logical continuations from the Garadh are potentially problematic in this respect (but Broad Gully clears first).

Jubilee Corner commits to Jubilee Ramp unless you can downclimb the corner (harder, though the SMC climbers' guide does mention it as a descent route). There is presently a covering rope at the ramp: I upgraded it last year, though I didn't fit it originally. The ramp is perhaps too delicate to scramble in the wet, so if someone steals the rope, the downclimb will be forced. Beware of loose rock on the upper tier of the Trident if you continue on the line of Jubilee Climb, or move right to join my North Gully Buttress route (below). Jubilee Climb begins with a scramble up scree from Coire na Ciste to the right of Central Gully, but the corner can be reached by a traverse from the foot of the awful Nereid Gully.

Me exiting the final bridge-pitch of Righthand Southwest Buttress Route, Meall-an-tSuidhe (Fort William, Highland Scotland). This Grade 1 (ie easy) route is described in Noel William's book Scrambles In Lochaber.

At end of season I scramble in Glen Nevis, usually the Meall-an-tSuidhe gullies but sometimes Scimitar Ridge at Polldubh or Meall Cumhann near Steall. The best gully is the one just before the first aluminium bridge on the Pony Track: the first pitch is a great crash-course in bridging and highly recommended even in the wet. Wear overtrousers in late season or after rain.

Climbs

Two free-solo routes I recommend are:

North-East Buttress beginning with the Slab Rib Variation to Right-Hand Wall Route (to First Platform) in the dry, or Raeburn's 18 Minute Route when damp. Then traverse right along a grassy ledge to a bad step into Minus Three Gully. Scramble to the top (Mod? Diff?) and climb the crest to the Mantrap, which is surprisingly easy when you've got the knack of it, and can be done in the wet. The 40ft corner can also be done in the wet and the left exit is best (the right exit is delicate).

North Trident Buttress beginning with (say) Diagonal Route (Mod), Fifties Revival (Diff?), or even the rib immediately left of Right-Hand Chimney (Diff?), all on the lower tier of Moonlight Gully Buttress - the one with the cave shaped like a letterbox. {There are other good climbs here, too: see below). Cross to Moonlight Gully itself and scramble up left moving into Neptune Gully below a narrow chimney. Climb the chimney then break out onto either crest. The right-hand crest leads to an imposing tower: this serious and exposed problem must be climbed steeply for 10m (Diff?), then scramble up a ravine to a broad platform next to the upper funnel of Five Gully. The easier left-hand line rejoins here. Cross screes below short walls on the left to reach a distinctive curved chimney-crack. Climb to the immediate right of this and scramble up an arete leading to the cliff-line just north of Carn Dearg summit.

Record Times

I don't usually put a clock on myself, but I descended Ledge Route so many times in the summers of 2012/3 that by season's end I'd got it down to 31 minutes from the top cairn to the CIC hut 1800ft below. I have also descended it (once) without using my hands at any point, though certainly not in anything like half an hour. My usual descent line these days is Tower Ridge (49 minutes), a perfect complement to the brilliant power-scramble up Observatory Ridge. (I can't remember my overall time on that.)

The other scramble I tend to time is the Aonach Eagach in Glen Coe. I try to get from Am Bodach to Stob Coire Leith and back in an hour and a half, breaking into a gentle jog for the easy bits. I don't run (I'm too old), but even so Am Bodach to Meall Dearg can be done fifteen minutes in either direction, and the main ridge can be done in half an hour either way. I've joined-up all four legs within these times on only two occasions, out of four or five attempts.

Moonlight Gully Buttress below Carn Dearg NW (Ben Nevis, Highland Scotland) was originally climbed in 1936 by a contrived line crossing the main face from bottom left to top right. The obvious Right-Hand Chimney (90m, Very Difficult) was first climbed in 1943 by a party of three including Brian Kellett.

Moonlight Gully Buttress

I've worked on all the three VDiffs on Moonlight Gully Buttress, at least to the extent that I can identify the lines described in the SMC guide. I've free-soloed Right-Hand Chimney and what I take to be Moonlight Arete, which (if so) is the easiest of the three but probably does deserve its grade. The crux pitch is a near-vertical wall with the least-resistant line twice crossing a damp shallow chimney.

The third is Gaslight, which has a section in common with Right-Hand Chimney. The rightward traverse out of the chimney may be the crux of Gaslight. The chimney is a bit greasy but I have free-soloed it a few times in good conditions; I may not be able to complete Gaslight without pre-placed protection.

Logically, my research into this area of the cliff should include Fives Gully and Crack And Chimney, two VDiffs to the left of Easy Chimney (Mod) near the top of Carn Dearg Buttress. I have free-soloed both chimneys, but not the gully yet. An article summarising these climbs would also describe the upper tier of Moonlight Gully Buttress (which has a nice if short chimney-problem to the left of the main line) as well as the ascent of each section of Number Five Gully, all of which I've scrambled on various occasions.

Other Researches

Something I did want to do last season, and which I hope won't escape my attention again this year, is a roped descent of Hesperides Ledge and the lower reaches of Comb Gully. I'm certainly not going near the adjacent Two Gully (Scottish Very Severe) without top-roping it either! A complete survey of the bifurcations of Comb and Two Gullies would be worthwhile, to judge from the cliff-line, although the Climber's Guide does warn that, in summer, Two Gully "has a fierce reputation and is best avoided."