Black Saturday in Scotland

Birthday weekend, about a month before the alps, we fancy going up to Ben Nevis and linking a load of routes up to get into the fast and light mindset. A fairly hard day was planned. A link up of north-east buttress, tower ridge and observatory ridge. Then we wanted a day at the ice wall and I wanted to show Ash some stuff on the remaining snow (anchors etc). Monday was booked off work, the car was packed, and off we go.

The plan was to arrive in Scotland at about 2, catch a few hours sleep in the north face car park, and head off about 5. As it went, we arrived in Scotland about 3. And decided we may as well sort gear then.

We then grabbed some food, moved to north face car park, and set off about 5. It was an awesome walk in in the dark and early morning light. Got some pictures from this below.

We arrived at the base of north east buttress at 0540 and set off up straight away moving together. This was Ash's second experience of moving together and he took it very well, apart from one little section when he was "leading" and froze up a little, I moved around him, above him, set up a belay and brought him up. After this we moved together and short pitched the steeper sections. A few pictures from the route itself.

Everybody loves haribo. We carried on up the route, the fog getting thicker til the final short pitch. As I climbed this I noticed a large, 3 foot by 3 foot boulder, swaying in the wind. I'd normally of cleaned this, but I wasn't sure it wouldn't hit Ash, so told him to be careful of it, and carried on. I topped out just after 0800. Not an incredibly fast time, but it would see us through the link ups in the long summer days. I set up a direct belay and shouted down to Ash to climb up. A few minutes later I heard a boulder falling, smelt the charred rock and watched it going down the hill. I shouted to Ash "Watch that go! Damn that was big, its starting a huge rockfall below it"

No response.

"Ash? Are you OK?"

No response.

"Ash?"

"The boulder hit me"

"What?"

"The boulder landed on my foot, it kills"

He'd dislodged it with one foot and landed on the other. I was impressed he'd managed to stay on the face and not fall, he hadn't screamed out or anything, but all credit suddenly went out the window when he came out with the phrase "I feel all faint and woozy" and with that, the little princess fainted! I'd started tying off the belay and preparing to haul him up the rest when he came back round, and with incredible resolve managed to finish the route.

We spent a few minutes here discussing options, the best way to carry on, should we call for rescue etc. We decided against it and Ash wanted to push for the summit, as it would be his first proper summit. We packed his bag into mine and we pressed on with a combination of hopping, carrying, and sliding on the floor.

Hop

Hop

Fall

But he pushed on. After about 4 hours (lots of rests) we eventually made it to the summit about midday. 

Again, we sat down to discuss options. We decided to wait a few hours and then see if we could make it down the normal tourist track, then catch a taxi round to north face car park, so I settled down for some kip.
Ash decided he wanted to try and make it down the tourist track, so off we went again. After about 1km in nearly 2 hours, Ash was finally happy to call for rescue. We explained what had happened, and that with a set of crutches he'd be able to get himself down.

40 minutes later "Thud Thud Thud" here comes the helicopter! Ash's face flushed red with embarressment, even more so when the camera crew jumped out.

You can see us on Countryside Rescue 999 early next year.

We received the obligatory rollicking off MR for not calling them out sooner, but I still can't help but think we could of done more to get ourselves down. I'd appreciate any opinions on this.

Once back in Sheffield (Fort Williams hospital could not definitively say either way) we discovered Ash had a very bad break in his heel. That was it, he wouldn't be able to make the alps (though he still came on the holiday). 2 months later, almost to the day, he's now walking without crutches/special foot things and is planning his next climbing trip in the coming weeks.