Archives

Hill walking Club

I had an interesting conversation recently with a person decked out in a harness, carabineers and loads of dangly metal bits of gear hanging off him. It was in Kate Kearney’s cottage at the Gap of Dunloe. A gang of us had just finished doing Carrauntoohil by Central Gully and back down the Heavenly Gates. As I was at the bar, dressed in gortex and fleece, he asked me where had we been for the day. I replied we had just climbed Carrauntohill by the aforementioned route.

“Climb but you don’t climb you need all this gear to climb. That was a walk in the park.”
“ Oh I said, I didn’t mean to offend”

So what did we do that day? We certainly didn’t walk up. My dictionary says to climb is “to go up, mount, ascend often with hands” …. Yep that’s what we were doing. But then it dawned on me I have a totally different look at a mountain than the man I met at the bar. I look at the mountain looking for a safe and easy way up. He looks at it and finds the hardest and most dangerous way up. We even dress different. He was in old tracksuit bottoms and a grubby old t shirt. I was in gortex, fleece and gaiters. It’s like all the rock climbers had a secret ballot and decided they would take the word climb for themselves and allow no one else to use it. And we certainly didn’t ramble up that day. No ramblers are more concerned with wildlife, flowers, litter and erosion.

And there it was the word I was looking for, scramble. That’s what we did and scramblers we are. So after years of walking and certainly not climbing, as that man pointed out, a small group of us wanted to take our scrambling to the next level and that was in the winter, and in snow.

We decided to use Ireland’s national mountain training school also known as Tigglin. Sadly though, through to lack of government funding it closed last year but many of its instructors can be found working for themselves now in and around Ireland. The course we chose was a Scottish winter skills and scrambling course. Our instructor, Bren Weelan. It was to consist of 6 days of climbing, sorry scrambling based in Fort William.

The first evening was spent checking all the gear we had brought with us. We had been given a long list of equipment, crampons, ice axe, harness, helmet, snow shovel etc. The next week was to be spent learning how to use them.

Our first day was spent purely on safety. It was all carried out on the mountain of Anoch More a well known skiing area near Fort William. One of the vital skills is fall arrest. Let me tell you that snow, a steep hillside and gortex rain gear add up to a frightening toboggan run if you fall. Added to that, wearing what looks like vicious animal traps or crampons on your feet can only spell disaster if you were to start to tumble in that fall. Oh, and imagine the damage an ice axe would cause in all that mayhem. With that in mind you are taught progressively to slide to a controlled stop, first on your belly, next belly face down, then on your back head down etc. The final test was to start your slide on your back, head down, and when enough speed was gained Bren handed you your ice axe which you used to turn yourself over on to your belly then to turn head up then to slow your travel, all the time remembering to keep your crampons from digging in because if they do, you will cart wheel all the way down mincing any body parts that get in the way. As you can imagine most of the day was spent on safety skills.

Each night we had a lecture and that evening was spent on avalanche awareness. Over the “holiday” I couldn’t believe how much discussion and training we had on avalanche awareness. Every change of slope angle or change of slope direction an avalanche test was done. If you could ever see this test you would think that the person is a few coordinates short of a full bearing. You cut a deep long arc in the snow. It’s called the Rutschblock test. After cutting the arc you pull down on it and see where the snow shears. Examining all the snow layers, slope angle, shape of the slope you are on, you can determine avalanche risk. But even before that you must watch wind direction and snow fall for the weeks leading up to your trip to know which slopes would be at risk from wind slab avalanche….. It is a fascinating subject. The danger can be brought home in that, on one of the days we were there we had discussed where and which slopes would be dangerous for the week we were there and sure enough 4 climbers were avalanched out of number 2 gully on Ben Nevis and seriously injured. Why? Because they hadn’t had that same discussion as we had, or chose to ignore the dangers. I must say at this point that just being taught that subject has made the difference for us going out and deciding if it is safe or not to climb in the snow where as before we didn’t know and just took the risk.

Take your pick!

We climbed a good few mountains that week and progressed to Scottish winter grade 2 scrambles. All great fun and an incredible amount to learn. Every time we stopped Bren would teach us something, even what food choice to take with you. For example don’t take bananas, they freeze, you wont be able to eat them, and as for Mars bars forget it, they will break your teeth. We would learn about micro navigation. You often find your self in just total grey conditions; I say grey because it is what other people call a “white out” put that’s only because “grey out” just doesn’t sound the same. Everything in those conditions is the same color, grey, the sky the snow there is no horizon nothing but grey. So you have to learn to micro navigate, counting footsteps and timing on a stop watch so you now how many 100’s of metres you have come. Estimating the angle of the slope you are on and comparing it to the map to see where you are. What have you passed, what is the safest route now and what do you expect to find in the next 10 minute?. We were in white out many times on that trip and every time we stopped Bren would ask us where we were on the map, we would point to where we thought we were and he would always say prove it to me. That’s why it’s called micro navigation because a 1:50000 map is huge when you really need to know where you are in a white out.

So what happens when it goes belly up? The weather really closes in, when the ski goggles you are wearing just get covered with driving snow. Maybe night falls and it’s unsafe to carry on in the dark. Maybe someone gets injured? Well at that point don’t drive on into more problems make a snow cave and spend the night in that. We were taught to make one on the 5th day. It’s amazing how it was blowing a blizzard when we dug it, but inside it’s just so quite and peaceful. It’s incredibly warm, when you compare it to the minus 20 chill factor outside. Our trip was to include a night out in a snow cave but unfortunately it would mean we would be unable to climb Ben Nevis which we all wanted to do the next day, so a retreat was made and our snow cave was left on the top of Buachaille Etive Mor, a mountain that was to claim the life’s of 3 climbers this last winter in an avalanche.

Warren, Barry, Stephen and Martin take shelter in their snow cave.

So the final day and to climb Ben Nevis. It was a truly glorious day, real Alpine conditions. The sun shown down on us and we had a truly memorable day. Bren said he has climbed it 40 or 50 times but never had conditions that we were given that day. From the old observatory and rescue shelter on the top you could see for ever. We had lost a good friend John Brennan only a couple of weeks before this trip and we felt it fitting we spent a few moments to remember our friend who loved the outdoors We miss you John and we left the Tri color in the window of the old observatory.

So are we walkers, ramblers, scramblers or climbers? Well you make your own mind up. Would I recommend a skills course like this? I would go again in the morning and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take their days out on the hills to the next level. If you are fed up of climbing mountains in the summer to find that peace and tranquility you were searching for is more like the queue for Majorca departure gate at Cork airport, then get the skills to go in the winter. Ask around your mates and get a gang together and go for it you won’t regret it. Always remember there is no such thing as bad weather just wrong choice of clothing. A famous mountaineer was once asked why do you climb? He answered “because its there” my answer would be “because its fun.”