I clambered onto a narrow ledge, breathless with fear
Here, in an extract from The Highlands, Paul Murton remembers a schoolboy climbing trip to Glencoe that changed him for ever
It was early December. I was a member of a school climbing party organised by my English teacher, known teasingly as “Ned” because he shared the same surname as the notorious Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. We left the minibus parked in a lay-by and marched over the moor towards the towering rocks of the Buachaille. If ever a mountain has frowned down on you, this is the one, I said to myself.
The Buachaille grew more intimidating the closer we drew to the base of its great cliffs. It looked like a vast pile of ancient, mouldering masonry: a huge ruin, riven with deep, snow-filled gullies, plunging to obscurity between soaring ridges and buttresses. Vertical rock walls – hundreds of feet high – disappeared into gloomy clouds from which flakes of snow were beginning to fall.
We stopped for a breather beneath the Water Slab – a massive ramp of wet stone – where a waterfall dropped 30 feet over an overhang. It was a cheerless place, made even gloomier by a small cairn and a plaque commemorating the death of a young climber who had been killed in a fall a couple of years earlier.
We roped up just above the Water Slab, Ned leading, a lad in second year following him, and I played tail-end Charlie.
Our route up Curved Ridge took us into the heart of the mountain. It was a spectacular situation. On the eastern horizon a pyramid-shaped mountain drew my eye.
“That is Schiehallion – the fairy mountain of the ancient Caledonians,” Ned explained, following my gaze as I clambered on to a narrow ledge beside him.
At the top of Curved Ridge, the rocks disappeared beneath a snowfield. The way ahead presented an intimidating spectacle – a narrow snow-filled gully, which tapered and steepened until it ended in a gap between a huge tower of rock and the summit cliffs.
It was getting dark; snow continued to fall from a leaden sky.
“We can’t hang about here long,” Ned said. “Let’s go.”
We moved together, trying to kick steps in the iron-hard snow. My boots made little impression so I edged my way up, putting my weight on my ice axe for balance and support.
I felt frightened. I knew if I – or any one of us – slipped, we’d all be pulled off. I pictured us sliding uncontrollably over the snow, and then hurtling down the cliffs.
I was breathless with fear by the time I reached Ned. He was perched on a narrow ledge of snow in the gap between Crowberry Tower and the summit. It was a very exposed position. Behind him, the deep slit of Crowberry Gully plunged a thousand feet into darkness. The only way was up.
Ned left me, climbing out of sight around the rocks above. I shivered as a sudden gust of wind blew a flurry of snowflakes through the gap where I crouched in a state of fear and nervous excitement. This was a truly amazing place to be: dark, forbidding and deathly dangerous. I felt utterly alone.