Minus One Gully - The Final Throw of Winter

The Ben is a fascinating mountain and it has a unique place in Scottish climbing history. In the climbing world it is best known for it’s ice routes and especially those that form the long aesthetic lines that traipse down the nooks and crannies on the Minus and Orion faces. My experience (or lack there of) with the Ben formed a gap that was growing unsustainable to ignore. I had climbed three winter routes on the mountain and none harder than IV. For an ice climber in Scotland this is unsustainable and in a season where I had climbed Labyrinth, Sticil and Poacher’s, it really wouldn’t do. I could put it off no longer so I headed west to see what all the fuss was about.

North East Buttress

The First day I headed in with Mark. It was stunning, The finest day of the winter. He knows the mountain well and had his eyes on Thompson’s route. Unfortunately the approach slope was loaded with windslab and we were high in Corie na Ciste with few other options. It was a fine day just to be out however so this sheltered us from too much disappointment at not getting a route done. For myself it was good to get into the mountain in good condition and get my bearings a bit. Once we were down Mark headed home and I went into Fort William for some food and to enjoy the sun. Mark and myself had started at 0600 and it had been somewhat busy. We had also stayed in the North Face carpark which is treated as a campsite and can be noisy with people coming and going throughout the night. I was climbing with Doug the next day and taking all this into consideration we stayed along the road a bit and set our alarms for 0300 with the intention of being moving up the path by 0430. In the event we started up the path well before this meaning that we were by far the first up on the mountain beating even those staying in the CIC hut to the routes. This was quite important as avalanche conditions were restricting what areas people were climbing in and we had our eyes on Minus One Gully which is much sought after as good conditions are rare.

Doug heading up towards the Minus Face

Minus One is the hardest of the Ben’s great gullies and it was the last to be climbed. It held out until 1974 after no fewer than 26 failed attempts. Upon reaching the gully we found that someone had discharged themselves down the lower reaches out of the cave. Luckily it was frozen although it was pretty detracting. I belayed first and Doug led up into the cave. The crux moves out of the cave took him up left on steep thin placements then some more delicate moves right to regain the main gully line. It seemed to be a very cold day and I followed up dealing with hot aches to the belay. The next pitch was a corner which held good ice but was steep enough that after placing a lower screw I powered through the section until it eased off. Placing a screw I then took a direct line before heading up right to a shallow corner. I led through this exiting on the left into a snow basin known as ‘The Meadow’. I dug out a belay here and brought up Doug.

Doug Starting up the first pitch

We were impressed with the conditions and the route was fantastic. Looking down there were multiple groups of climbers heading for the face and back beyond the CIC hut so the early start felt justified. Doug led up another nice pitch of ice to easier ground which I led though and up to gain the top of Minus One Buttress. From here we joined North East Buttress opting to run out long pitches. Once again the conditions were fantastic. The buttress has some awesome positions and exposure as it towers up towards the summit. Doug led up through the infamous Mantrap which I still found a bit tricky even with ice above. Easy to see why this provides such a formidable obstacle in leaner conditions. The 40ft corner was my lead and much to my delight I found a fantastic albeit unprotectable grade III ice chute. Before long we were on the plateau where we coiled the ropes then headed down to escape the icy southerly wind.

Doug Leading out The Meadow

The following day we started a little later however still had first choice of routes. We aimed for Sickle but somehow ended up on Hadrian’s Wall Direct. This gave a couple of pitches at the bottom before a long section of easy ground leading up to a final pitch onto the plateau. We were a bit tired from the previous day but made short work of this climbing it’s 300m in 3-4 hours. While neither Doug nor myself were ready to end the winter here the writing was on the wall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two days later the country was in lockdown leaving the mountains empty despite the brilliant conditions and weather. My season had begun back in October with a fantastic day on Tower ridge with Ryan. Five months later I ended it with another three of the Ben’s classic routes in two days. It was hard to see it coming good again after the constant thaws in January but keeping the faith is paramount in Scottish climbing.