A New Season - Tower Ridge

We drove into the North Face car park and got moving before 0600. I had picked Ryan up at 0300 but the drive over hadn't felt as long as anticipated. We made our way up through the frozen woodland path by the glow of our headtorches. Breaks in the trees offered us views over the lights of Fort William and low mist could be seen hovering over Loch Linnhe. It was cold, I suspected a temperature inversion but thought it should still be cold enough high up. We were heading for Ben Nevis's Tower Ridge, one of the most famous routes in the country. I'd been up and down it many times in summer but never in winter. In early season it's often buried in powder and provides the setting for many epics and benightenments. I fancied our chances but it was hard to anticipate what conditions and difficulties we would encounter. while it may not be buried this would mean that many of the technical sections high up would not be banked out and could pose far more of a challenge than the tech grade of 3 suggests. The forecast was good however and I was sure we would manage to overcome any challenges presented to us.

Fort WIlliam

After about 90mins we got to the CIC hut. The sun bathed the hills to the north in gold but the top of the Ben was capped with cloud. It was certainly winter with the snowline down to just above the hut. We had a quick stop then continued up towards Observatory gully. The Orion face presented itself before us. It's been a long time since I have seen it and I am yet to climb any of it's coveted winter routes. Hopefully the coming months bring us a decent winter and some of them will come into condition. Point five looked like it was forming ice already, an encouraging sign caused by the wet autumn.

The Douglas Gap

We found tracks leading out of Observatory gully up towards the Douglas gap so we stopped to gear up. The ridge had been climbed yesterday by one of the guides based on the west coast, a conditions post he had made had given us the spark we needed to make the journey over from the east. Once ready we solo'd up to the Douglas gap and set up a belay. The chimney that starts the ridge can be awkward and later in the season when the upper section comes into better condition this often becomes the crux of the route. I led up and ended up having to take my gloves off to surmount it. Once Ryan had joined me we moved together for a good portion of the route stopping to put in occasional belays at steeper sections. I pointed out Echo wall and the top of Great Chimney to Ryan as we passed them, he had seen them in Dave Macleod's videos. This section of the ridge is very alpine and photogenic.



As we reached the foot of the Great Tower we were now in the cloud and exposed to a cold south easterly wind. We stopped to put on some more layers and get the rope ready to pitch the next section. With Ryan Belaying I led out along the exposed Eastern Traverse. I stopped at the other end and put in another Belay. It was 1200, I was happy with the time we had covered the lower route in and we now had plenty of time to tackle the more difficult ground before us.  In the conditions the Fallen Block chimney hadn't banked out so we got to thread it. The route above this was by far the crux of our day. A couple of overhanging ledges that where awkward and insecure. I battled through them and reached the top of the Great Tower.



The next section is Tower Gap. The scene of Bill Murray's 'lassoing' story in his classic 'Mountaineering in Scotland'. To my knowledge this is the most common point of Benightenment in the Scottish mountains. It is a vertical notch in a narrow exposed crest. We decided to abseil into the gap and then belay out of it. The abseil went without incident although was a bit awkward with anchors at foot height. Climbing out of the gap was interesting with one leg on either side looking into the icy depths of Glover's Chimney! I got a cam in and a couple of good axe placements before committing to pulling myself up. I led out most of the rope and put in a belay to bring Ryan up to me. I was getting cold by this time so I made short work of the last pitch and we found ourselves on the plateau around 1430.

Ryan in Tower Gap

From here we headed down the tourist path and halfway lochan and were treated to a crisp view of Moidart, Knoydart and Skye's Cullin. At the bottom I treated us with a few Pasta pots before setting off home. Tower Ridge in winter is one of the most sought after and prestigious routes in Scotland. We we lucky to get it in such accessible condition this early in the season. For a first route of the season they don't really come much better, a perfect start to the new winter.