A Nice Day On The Ben

Mark Diggins

An account of an ascent of Vanishing Gully by Graham Lipp and Mark Diggins, 28th March, 1979 (reprinted from the newsletter of May/June 1979)

The dewdrip I wiped off my nose reminded me that I was looking at the icicles decorating the C.I.C. hut, and the mist in front of my eyes was partly due to my cold but mainly to the fact that the cloud level was just above my head. We had walked up from our tents which were pitched lower down the Allt a' Mhuilinn. The wind that had been gale force the day before seemed to have dropped, so we had set out to do a short route, namely Vanishing Gully. If the weather improved we hoped to finish by ascending Tower Ridge, which would give us about another 1500ft of climbing. Our route is situated on the northern flank of Tower Ridge, finishing to the west of the Douglas Gap.

We set off in the general direction of the gully cramming our necks into the mist. Miraculously the mist cleared for a few moments, revealing a fine thread of ice vanishing skywards, a beautiful line which made the route look even more awesome than we had read.

Just as quickly the mist closed in and the wind increased bringing with it driving snow. We were not the only ones heading for this route. We ended up second in line, chomping at the bit.

I led off as soon as their last man was climbing but ended up belaying two thirds of the way up the pitch because there was no room on the stance. Above there was a narrow groove of very steep ice leading to the gully proper. Graham came up and led on, just in time to meet a huge spindrift avalanche which came rearing down the cliff like charging surf. Still spitting snow, Graham belayed below the crux pitch.

The ice reared up vertically, sporting a couple of bulges for further enjoyment. The mouth of a small cave was situated halfway up. I set off up the ice, zanking in my zeroes. It felt good to be moving well. I had just tucked my head into the cave when another powder avalanche shooshed down. This one must have lasted about four minutes. It blocked out the light into the cave. I moved out again and fixed a good screw. The ice bulged and threw you off balance. I placed an ice axe high above my head, swung out and bridged across the cave, another placement and I swung across to the left relying purely on my axes for support. I pointed up like this until I was over the bulge but still on steep ice. I continued up an ice groove and finished with a certain amount of difficult groping - half mantle shelving onto my axes in deep snow. What a pitch! Graham came up and led on, climbing the last steep ice pitch on excellent ice, finishing on a snowfield.

A call came and I started off. It was a relief to be moving again. The wind was now blasting snow into our faces. Two more pitches of mixed climbing brought us onto the ridge proper. A fantastic route, good ice and a good line.

But the day was not yet over. After an abseil down a gully, guess what? The ropes wouldn't pull down. The air was blue! This meant that we had either to leave the ropes or I would have to climb back up the gully, which had a small ice overhang in it. I resigned myself to the latter, protecting myself with a prusik on the abseil rope. It was hard getting back up and I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the abseil point. I extended the sling and went back down. The ropes pulled through and so off we went, shielding our faces against the blasting wind. It was a relief to get out of the onslaught into the relative calm behind the C.I.C. hut and let the adrenalin subside.