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The worst embarrassment is to hope that the ground opens up and swallows you, but the real thing when the snow gives way on the glacier and you stare below your crampons on dangling feet hovering over the abys is worse than any embarrassment. Fortunately we had practiced for this before our first Alpine adventure and my rucksack wedged on the snow that had given way, the rope to my climbing companion held and the prussic loop attached to the climbing rope worked so I could to get back up the rope. Thank you Blackshaw’s Mountaineering book and the training we put ourselves through before departing Carlisle on our first Alpine mountaineering trip.
Not all training can be done before the event and my first explanation of what to do with an ice axe and how to brake with it was given on the bus from Northern Counties College, Newcastle, where I was the President of the Outdoor Pursuits Society to a snowy Helvellyn. I must have remembered the words because we decided to ascend from Red Tarn up the snow slope to the summit and I slipped and remembered to put the pointy pick bit in and lean on the blunt adze bit and it worked, I stopped, thought try again for experience and found it could be fun, as long as there is a good run out and no rocks to tumble over.
Many years later I was on the same route when I noticed a static group on the face with an obvious problem. This was before mobile phones and someone was running to the Glenridding YH to phone for a helicopter because someone had slipped and got the pointy bit in his chest and was in pain, likely broken rib and possible puncture. So I set up my rope as an anchor and did some helping until the helicopter arrived with one wheel on the ground the other hovering over Red Tarn and eventually the victim got in the chopper and my companion, Joy, got a lift down in the chopper! Discrimination!
Snow slides are an obvious risk in winter mountaineering and my Glenmore Lodge text explains some of the risks but even a simple walk in Glencoe with Kevin Power can turn interesting when we persuaded a lone walker to join us for safety, he in the middle as we crossed the soft snow slope and Kevin trudged a trench of footsteps, he walked in them, between them they had inadvertently set up a fracture line over a hard layer below, and suddenly the poor chap found that the slab of snow that he was on became detached from the bit with Kevin in front and me behind and off he slid to an ignominious slide for a short distance (the slope was not very high up). Kevin and I at the front and rear just found it hilarious but he turned round and went home.
Snow slides can be more dangerous in the Alps when they are big enough to get a lot of speed and have a crevasse chasm at the end called a bergschrund, not a good place to fall into. Waymark Holidays advertised in the Times Ed for leaders for Alpine walking holiday Alpine experience required. It was no walking holiday and crampons and ice axe were advised but if they were required then they would require an Alpine Guide, very expensive, so people like me were invited to eventually get the clients up Gran Paradiso.
Everyone had an ice axe so we practiced ice axe braking and I was the only one with crampons and carried the only rope and guide books and map and emergency gear (aching knees and back just thinking about it). No problem, except for that lad who daydreamed whilst walking and would wander off the path without realising and this became so worrisome on narrow ridges that I threatened to tie him onto the rope. Eventually we arrived at the easy snow slope up Gran Paradiso which had so many people trudging through it that a trench 3 feet deep had been compressed into the snow. This would have been a big margin of safety because at least my punters were in a trench and couldn’t fall down the slope to the bergschrund waiting to eat them up.
The problem was that there were people coming down from the summit as we were ascending and the trench was only wide enough for one person. So I drilled into them all, if someone comes towards you, get on the uphill side, the right hand side, up above the trench, got it! So the fail safe was fall into the trench / path. I was in front and there was a shout and one of the punters, a young lady, had got out of the trench on the downhill side and slipped and was sliding down towards that big bergschrund waiting to eat her up.
Now, I am no hero, but there was no thought, just a sort of “not on my watch mate” and so I jumped over the trench, lifted my crampons and accelerated as fast as I could to catch up with this poor fool who was not managing to do an ice axe brake in the panic of the moment. I managed to get below her and talk calmly and eventually she stopped, we ascended, we survived and … I decided that the free holiday with a bit of spending money was not worth risking myself or others for – never again.
https://www.thebmc.co.uk/how-to-climb-gran-paradiso
“the highest independent peak in Italy (the Matterhorn shares its borders with Switzerland), which offers outstanding views across the Alps from its summit. It’s graded F+ and 4,061m high, so if you’re looking for a big peak that is technically relatively straightforward, Gran Paradiso ticks all the boxes. The catch is that – unlike on many other 4,000m peaks in the Alps – there are no lift systems to take you partway to this summit, so if you suffer from blisters or sore knees, this probably isn’t the peak for you. If you are fit and enjoy the satisfaction of climbing summits under your own steam, it’s perfect though.”
Even a rope doesn’t help when the snow slide starts. I had attempted the Rimpfischhorn with the lads on my first Alpine trip and not made it the whole way of the traverse. Now with Joy my intention was to traverse the ridge but I left out the top of the pinnacle, went along the ridge then started the descent late in the day with the snow getting soft and the inevitable happened and Joy slid, did the ice axe braking OK but the snow was so soft that it would not hold and I started sliding and only with feet and ice axe gripping the soft slush did we stop before any real drama happened. At least on the way down over the glacier we did not fall into a crevasse like happened with the Carlisle lads.
Risk is part of the sport and sometimes the various risks are obvious but the solution requires choosing one risk over the other. So when we had climbed the Barres des Ecrins and descend the other side we were dead chuffed at having completed the traverse of the Barres des Ecrins. But oops, the weather suddenly deteriorated and an electrical storm started which was bad enough if it preceded a thunderstorm but what to do about the risk of a lightning strike. Lightning strikes trees, peaks and things upright so do we sit, lie down, or …
My training told me that lightning strikes when there is a difference in charge between earth and sky so a pointed conductor aimed to the sky allows charge to go through the conductor to the heavens above – heavens above was the least of the comments from my climbing companions when I pointed my ice axe point towards the storm and plunged my rope in the soggy snow.
Things became a bit of an act of faith when the descent from the glacier snow slopes led to a steep rocky gully but the wall on the right had a metal cable anchored to the wall so enabled a safe-ish descent. The trouble was that there was so much static electricity around that even the metal frame of my spectacles was buzzing and the metal cable was buzzing. But surely the metal cable would act as the pointy bit that you see on church towers, the lightning conductor. To hold or not to hold that is the question – stuff it, falling is such a pain that I’ll grasp any nettle on a rock face descent. We survived and put another Alpine peak in the bag.
Years later when teaching science with the Van der Graff generator and getting the kids to point fingers at each other to show the point of their finger to spark (is that allowed any more?) but I challenged them to consider if Kaiser Wilhelm’s pointed bit on top of his helmet was there to save him from a lightning strike – ha ha.
Ps The Barre des Écrins (4,102 m) is a mountain in the French Alps with a peak at 4102m altitude. It is the highest peak of the Massif des Écrins and the Dauphiné Alps and the most southerly alpine peak in Europe that is higher than 4,000 m. It is the only 4,000 m mountain in France that lies outside the Mont Blanc Massif. Before the annexation of Savoy in 1860 it was the highest mountain in France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiguille_Dibona
https://rab.equipment/uk/basecamp/aiguille-dibona-the-needle-in-the-blue
“The Aiguille Dibona, (3,130 m (10,269 ft)), is a mountain in the Massif des Écrins in the French Alps notable for its “astonishing triangular granite spear.”
27 years old and invincible and rocking away, this beautiful spire is the ultimate dream, especially with a reasonably PD (Peu Difficile) OK route up it. About 15 pitches up it and the most wonderful warm clean rock with views and exposure to soak in. One of the highlights of my rock climbing career. Even after higher altitudes in the Himalaya and harder climbs in Scotland, this stands out as a thing of beauty that I savour 45 years later.
Someone persuaded me to try hobnail boots on ice covered rock and grass but the heavy and cumbersome experience was a one off, like the hemp rope that someone found. I realised that the non stretch rope and wrong boots would be fatal so I gave up the climbing thing until I could find appropriate gear. Eventually the guy with the nylon rope was the key and my car was the ticket so most weekends until I was 21 was messing about in the Lake District, either walking or climbing and the fell walkers bus from Carlisle became the way to meet and have fun. The Old Dungeon Ghyll in Langdale and The Lamplighter in Keswick with Paul Ross became regular haunts and I learned enough folk songs and bawdy ballads to sing for my beer, with occasional sleeping in that barn down Langdale with the itchy straw bales, or in the cave below Bowderstone for a laugh.
Gear was an issue when money was tight and the technology had not been developed. We progressed from loops of rope to tapes to hexagonal nuts with the centre drilled out, the original nuts for jamming! When we realised that the ice axes we had were useless and people were buying these curved things, the Carlisle Climbing Club lads knew someone at Workington Steel Works who was an expert with metals so for a few quid he heated and bended the pick of our T shaped ice axes into a curve and cut down the long shaft. I still have mine, complete with an indentation that was something to do with checking the hardness of the finished bent steel.
The ice axe wasn’t my only weapon and I still use my ice dagger, mainly for diy, and on Central Gully one cold year I ended up soloing it but at the chock stone where the water had flowed over it and froze in a slight overhang, the ice dagger shattered the top layer of ice leaving me dangling from the curved ice axe at full arms length with my feet having no purchase on the overhang. This was one of those moments when it’s survive or bye, so somehow I did a one arm pull up, sunk that ice dagger in with my left arm, and prayed the dagger would hold while I scrabbled with feet and released the ice axe to fix it higher up. I used up one of my multiple lives that day!
Apprentice on the crags was a title that resonated and I treated mountaineering like a skill set to learn, lifelong learn without end. For that reason when it came to navigation a few of us Carlisle lads decided to do the Blackshaws and MLC thing in detail so step counting up and down hill in any conditions and aiming at night with compass and rope and other practice meant that when we met real proper white-outs we were prepared. Now, realise that some people call a bit of poor visibility in snow a white-out but at the risk of repeating a Scottish adventure:
We had driven from Carlisle to Cairngorm and were going to climb a snow gully, the one that later in my Winter MLC at Glenmore Lodge there was a fatality in that gully. So we did the gully, got to the top and the wind blown snow was so dense that 10 feet was the max visibility. Great, a chance to do the navigation we practiced, but not great that if we got it wrong we were at the top of this giant cliff that we had just climbed. So, roped together, kept taught to be a straight line, person at the back aiming with compass, person at the front would fall over, persons behind hold onto them (like the crevassed rescue in later adventures) and the person in front cannot see anything so could walk over the cliff so he throws snowballs ahead to see them and if they land then there is solid ground, if not then he has thrown it over the edge. But make sure you throw it far enough so that you don’t walk on the cornice and vanish through it.
We picked up another party who were a bit worried so they tagged along and eventually we got to the ski slope and adventure over, except the cold tents awaited, but it was supposed to be a taster of what the Himalaya would be about, no luxuries if we were to go there.
I know those are the hardest words to say because of what they mean but when nature works against your carefully chosen moment then there is something more at play. Chris had been putting up with me for enough years that she hadn’t used and escape plan so after all the rough camping and all weather mountain adventures and suffering her mega long distance walks (ladies walking the legs off me!), after that apprenticeship I decided it was time to make it all legal and binding.
So with the love of the outdoors, nature and mountains binding us, I decide that today’s walk at Easter up simple Cat Bells to Dale Head and round to Hindscarth and Robinson would be a grand place to propose. Easter was early and we were well prepared for the snowline that we could see on the tops, and as we ascended Cat Bells with the wind blowing straight onto us from the South we could see the cloud level descending, but we were prepared. Unlike the school party ascending at about the same pace but we overtook them and found some kids had zoomed ahead of the leader so I gave some advice to kids and teacher and warned them about the thick grey brown snow cloud and strong wind ahead which we ploughed on towards. Eventually we got to Dale Head where the full force of the southerly wind hit us full on, so it was hoods up and hunker down.
But I had this speech about in the face of all adversity we will struggle and thrive and all that tosh. I said it, “What’s that?” she shouts, I try again shouting louder with the wind blown ice hurting my exposed skin and the words being blown with icy disregard for the outdoor romance of the moment. I think Chris ended up with telling me to shut up and get going, so much for romance but max points for survival.
But survival was the name of the game in these hairy conditions and out of the icy blown gloom came a man and lady with a little terrier on a lead, shivering and frozen, poor little thing. They were lost, thought they were at Maiden Moor or something and how could they get down to Borrowdale. We weren’t going to change our route so we said join us and we will go west then south at Robinson back to Borrowdale via Newlands.
But the little dog was suffering from hypothermia, so I had a spare nylon pile in my rucsac and a spare hat, and a big rucksack, so I wrapped the little dog in the nylon piles, stuck the dog package in the rucksack with the hat on its head and its head peering over my shoulder, and off we went towards Robinson. I was navigating by compass and step counting and checking the map, Chris with unerring (lucky) familiarity stuck to where she knew the path would be under the snow, and we both arrived towards where the top of Robinson should be in the gloom of the dense wind blown snow cloud.
All of a sudden out of this grey white glook a figure appeared with arms outstretched like the Angel of the North but we were his guardian angels because he was lost, thought he should be in Borrowdale, didn’t want to descend in case there were cliffs, there were no mobile phones in those days, so he sat by a cairn thinking if it was a top then someone might visit it and here we were!! The man had lost a glove and exposure had started because he didn’t have the sense to put his hand somewhere warm and his speech was starting to slur, time for a quick descent. He was a well built butcher so would likely be OK but his wife was thin and had started to clam up – down quick.
Eventually Chris and the two first couple went off ahead with their dog now revived running beside them. I was left with the lady who was mighty slow and very nervous of the rocky scramble step that competent walkers hardly notice but she was in real trouble and I wondered if it was exposure and was wondering about stop and rescue services when she explained that she had a spinal issue and one leg shorter than the other and … in those conditions! Anyway we all got down and ended up at the wonderful Mary Mount where they were staying and had a well earned cup of tea.
And I didn’t propose to Chris for another year, until a romantic outdoor place in the Yorkshire Dales. And we are still living happily ever after.
The End.