Tower Ridge

This weekend I was up in Lochaber, once again staying at the Inchree Center. Saturday, Tom, Ali, Jayne and myself headed up to the Ben for a go at Tower Ridge IV 3 *** 800m. I climbed Tower Ridge about 4 years ago in summer, naively without a proper guidebook and with somebody who'd never really climbed outside before. Obviously, this turned into a bit of an epic with us getting off route, people getting scared and generally being slow - we took nine ours CIC to summit. At the time this was a big learning experience on several fronts, but I did fall in love with the route, and with the North Face of the Ben. I've climbed on the Ben several times since then, but my winter attempts at Tower Ridge have always been thwarted for some reason or another.

Myself leading the Eastern Traverse.

With a promising forecast I first convinced Tom to come and have a crack at it, but then realising we'd need transport we roped in both Jayne and Ali, and planned to climb in two pairs. A 4:45am wake up call, followed by packing and a brief breakfast had us leaving the north face car park at Torlundy at 6am. There are two main options for walking in to the north face, with the approach up Allt a' Mhuilinn probably being the most popular. Some people however prefer, and believe starting from Glen Nevis and traversing in to the CIC from the halfway lochan is faster, we took the former. Since the last time I headed up the Allt a' Mhuilinn path its been improved, and is now signposted and marked all the way tot he top car park, and wide enough all the way to walk two a-abreast.

We paused at the CIC hut around 7:45am just as it was getting light to restock on water before making our way up towards the Douglas Boulder. It was very claggy and visibility was low so it took us a while to locate the start of the route but by 8:30am we had geared up and were making our way up the initial gully to the notch behind the Douglas Boulder. I won't describe the whole route, but will give a brief overview of the crux sections below, which are all interspersed with sections of grade I or II ridge climbing:

1. Douglas Boulder Notch, 3: a short steep mixed pitch leads out of the notch and onto the ridge proper.
2. Little Tower, 3-: Another mixed pitch up the little tower, we took the left flank.
3. Easter Traverse, 2: Not hard, just an exposed traverse.
4. Great Tower, 3: Probably the climbing crux of the route in my mind, a steep pitch and pull over a bulge that lead you back to the ridge crest and summit of the Great Tower.
5. Tower Gap, 3: Not as physically hard as the previous, but more physiologically demanding with the step/lower down into the gap being fairly tricky.

Tom, just before Tower Gap on the final stages of the route.

I climbed with Jayne, and led the vast majrity of the route, and Tom with Ali. We followed a Russian pair up for most of the route who were good company - one of them actually fell while climbing down into Tower Gap and ended up a few meters down Glover's Chimney but thankfully was ok. We had to queue for a while before a few of the cruxes, specifically the Little Tower, Eastern Traverse and Tower Gap which probably equated to around 1-1.5hours of waiting, but this gave us time to eat and chill out. We topped out at 2pm, taking 5.5 hours including the queuing which I think is good, considering the SMC guidebook suggests 6-10 hours for the route. Conditions were good, with solid neve providing a motorway all the way up. The weather cleared as we reached the upper section as well with the cloud lifting to reveal a stunning day with bright sunshine.

Tom, Myself and Jayne on the descent. Very satisfied.

Honestly I found the route easier than expected, the good conditions had something to with this but still I thought the cruxes only just warranted their technical 3 grades. I can understand the adjectival grade of IV being given to the route as it is a long way, but perhaps a III/IV would be more appropriate. Anyhow, none of this takes away from he fact that this is an awesome route, its got a true alpine feel to it, and certainly deserves its rightful place in Cold Climbs. If you've not done it, go and do it - it's ace.

Photos courtesy of Dr. Ali Chambers.