THE Ben in March. A warm hut eases the memory of the overnight bitch and the overloaded totter up endless bogs. There is a smell of routes in the air.
Only two come before the thaw. Keen, we hurry up Coire na Ciste. But unfit crampon muscles fitten only stepcutting ones, and stepcutting keeps crampon muscles weak. A vicious circle leads straight up the buttress, pausing only to be overtaken.
Dawn habitually passes us by, but one gloomy noon sees us on the Douglas Boulder Gap. The first rock is the last, conditions are not easy. Now difficult, now not, we follow footsteps to the Eastern Traverse. They stop abruptly near the top of Ogilvy’s route – that’s why they didn’t get back till eleven last night, then. We keep traversing, variously to a bulging diagonal ramp and an impatient direttissima, two leaders at once – knitting a safety net?
From the summit snows of this best of the four thousanders a Peruvian-style tightrope disappears into the mist. Initial attempts are repelled. Eventually the crest provides a psychological handrail as I kick delicately along one excessively steep face, axe thrust deep into the other side. The top of the gap. and a long search for protection a hundred feet out from a short axe. The summer block belay is inextricably buried, but at last I reach rock and put a peg in. Though happier now. I prefer not to jump into the gap. and have to use a sling on the peg. The far side is ferocious. The famous lasso spike is not in evidence. but on peering round the corner I find a traverse line on steep but not unreasonable ice. A little scoop leads back to the crest, deep in sloping powder here, and a necessarily peculiar belay as the rope runs tight.
I hear voices from the Tower, invisible across the gulf. Visions of shipwrecks and breeches buoys intrude as I take the rope in. Tiredness is setting in, but no-one else wants the lead. After a short pitch come longer and very icy slopes. Steeper, rightwards – this must be the top. A last effort up a snow-ice wall. finishing with a left traverse only just in balance, and I sink over the top. Instinct brings the other two up while I sit exhausted in the rime. Nearly dark. I follow the other two past what can be seen of the summit, towards the arête. The usual misgivings, then it appears, and with a single abseil we reach easy going.
One Brenva face looks much like .html when it’s snowing.
Fierce days, palmy days.
"La plus belle des grandes routes du Mont Blanc" – and a great ambition realised. The same exhaustion, tempered by satisfaction, as the ridge is reached and the vast face is once more there, not here. About noon, the weather still perfect, we’ll be down no bother. Here far more than in Scotland it can be dangerous to relax on reaching the top; luckily this time I don’t feel the same need to lose the initiative. This is a Mediterranean instead of an Arctic country, and on a day like this feels correspondingly less serious, apart from the alarming extent to which the overhead sun infiltrates the snow. I suppose a real snowman should resent the sun.
Even from the valley the Innominata is beautiful, though so foreshortened – why have no more than a handful of British parties done it? Instead of a warm hut on a frozen Ben, a blizzard-swept bothy miles from anywhere, you have a fabulous eyrie on the Eccles, with a hot tin roof on which to toast your snow-soaked feet in the afternoon. The hut is lower than expected, leaving a good hour of delectable climbing to the Pic Eccles: steep snow and intriguing pitches leading to one of the best of all four thousanders, and a photographic orgy – it’ll be dark here in the morning.
Even for the non-rock climber, our moonlit progression up perfect grade IV rock to reach the sunrise at fourteen thousand feet is superbly satisfying. Imperceptibly the sun assumes the moon’s task: the Frêney face becomes lighter than the Brouillard side. The day is still golden young when we reach the horizontal arête above the first step: the snow is frozen hard. The crest acts as a very real handhold as I frontpoint along one near-vertical side of the narrowest ridge I’ve ever seen. I’m looking down to the Brouillard Glacier, not the Frêney, but it’s still a lot further than Observatory Gully. Pete takes the photographs with one hand only...
The side of the great couloir is icy, but we move together using runners on blocks which protrude at convenient intervals. Sun-loosened icicles from far above sweep the slopes to our left, forcing us up ice pitches among the smooth rocks of the bank. Finally a crossing must be made. The ice is hard at first, so much so that I can’t get my good screw in; at least that serves to keep it for the middle. A front point teeter, then snow reappears, and the rope just reaches the rocks before Pete has to leave the first screw. A change of lead, but before long we reach the diagonal couloir and have our first rest in six hours. The big red overhangs look good, but it’s a long way to come for an outcrop.
It feels odd to stand still, and soon it’s back to the same crampon haul from rock to rock. Sooner than expected we emerge onto the rib, and the already considerable exposure increases as we look straight down to the valley ten thousand feet below. This upper snow, lying on ice, has been melting for hours now and gets less and less pleasant. The only landmarks are a fairly awkward rock step – too lazy to take crampons off – and the sagging double-corniced arête plugging a tributary of the main couloir. We ignore a mysterious abseil loop and avoid the obstacle on the left. Onward sweeps the slope; tiredness is setting in. A screw protects the traverse rightwards to the blunt crest, and things are temporarily better: but soon the last rocks are behind. I revert to second on the rope. which though even more nerveracking in these conditions is at least less tiring.
At last the ridge arrives, we can rest. Nervous and physical energy alike low, we nevertheless reject the dull short cut below the Courmayeur summit and plough doggedly over it, admiring the great final sweep of the Peuterey, the magnificence of sun and snow all round. A Himalayan trudge onto the now deserted roof of Europe, a celebratory photograph, then reluctantly yet joyfully down, following the litter, energy seeping back. Tea outside the Vallot refreshes us for the long descent, and with only two more halts we reach the valley before dark, once more exhausted but euphoric. Down the road the hills seem gentler, the corners less sharp.
High above us the ice is grey in the cool of the evening.