3 Point 5

It was on the Monday, that Danny suggested the trip up to The Ben to do Point Five Gully. At first, I thought it was a foolish idea, certainly something that Danny would suggest, not me. Initially I think, Danny and some of his housemates were going, but soon they realised how stupid an idea it was, and I was being tempted by my days off falling perfectly on the Sunday and Monday. Somehow, Danny subtly cajoled me into agreeing to go.
The initial plan was that both Danny and I would finish work on the Saturday (in separate Joe Brown shops), race home, meet up at Danny's with Rob (who I believe took no persuasion at all!), and fly up to Scotland. After finding the North Face car park, we would bivi beside/inside the car, get up early, be among the first on the route, and after finishing race back to Danny's house in the South Lakes where we would sleep and be home the next day to drop Rob off at work in Pete's at 2pm. The plan was faultless!

Friday night I went to sleep with half my stuff packed, and didn't do any more on Saturday morning. I counted on being able to take a short lunch, and race back to my place in time to finish the packing and be at Danny's house in plenty of time. At 6pm (the designated meeting time), I was puffing my way up the hill, and once there we waited for Rob. Minutes ticked by, and after one false start to pick up Rob's sleeping bag, and one breakdown of communication, we were underway. Within 10 minutes we realised Rob had forgotten the majority of his food, but Danny was dead set against turning back.

After Danny, I, and then Danny again had driven his Rover Metro for well over 6 hours we arrived in the North Face car park and slept uneventfully. I was rudely woken at five in the morning after nowhere near enough sleep, by a nearly ready Danny & Rob wandering around, stumbling into my prostate form. Slowly I emerged and readied my kit, and we were nearly ready to start. Danny had a couple of gastric problems causing "explosive diarrhoea" 3 times in 10 minutes.

If anyone has walked from the North Face car park to the CIC hut, they will know all about the peat bogs, and the tussock grasses, and various other unpleasant things that one must walk through to make progress. I can imagine it being a dreary place in the middle of the day. At 6.30am, it was a truly God-forsaken spot. Fortunately, we were walking at a reasonable pace so made out way through swiftly.

On arrival at the CIC hut, we donned crampons, removed axes from our rucksacks, and had a bite to eat before we moved on. Looking at the North Face of Ben Nevis from the CIC hut is possibly the biggest wake-up call to many prospective climbers/ice climbers/mountaineers. She stares at you with impending doom. She often has a wreath of clouds surrounding her head warning you to come no further. In winter conditions, she is even more impressive. Her normally black, grey, ochre, and brown flanks are for the most part covered in a thin white layer. In some places, these layers are just thick enough for your dirty great metal weapons to allow you to make progress up her sides. Sometimes you can make enough progress actually to appear on top of her head. However once there she still does not relent. Having left your mark on her summit she tempts you to veer ever so slightly off course, and Five Finger Gully is the death trap awaiting those whose navigation isn't honed to perfection. It would take concentration and luck all day to do this without any problems.

We made our way to the base of the gully separately. Rob and Danny sped off, leaving me for dust. Only fair, I was the scummy boulderer; I wasn't supposed to have stamina. The burning sensation in my calves felt alien to me. Eventually I appeared some fifty feet below where the others were making their stances a little more accommodating. Danny had already established he was to lead the first pitch, and once on it I managed to get some photo's of him looking in control, and comfortable in this most-hostile environment. I initially followed on one of the ropes, but as Rob was going to lead the second pitch, I paused halfway up, allowed Rob to climb past, and waited for Rob to continue to the second belay. I then climbed up to meet Danny who was loving every minute. Danny seconded up to Rob, and I followed. I quickly became impressed with the skills of my companions. The fact that Rob had easily wandered up this highly intimidating pitch, and Danny had rushed up it only made me feel worse when I thrutched and clawed my way up through the chimney! At around this point the spindrift avalanches were just starting to annoy us. As soon as I appeared around an ice-covered block, I was able to see Rob with quite a good belay, and Danny 30 feet beyond him with a crap one. I was then required to climb 10 feet beyond Danny to make a slightly better belay. From here, I belayed Danny through, followed by Rob. Danny had made a bucket seat to belay from, and as Rob and then I climbed past him, he mentioned an increasing empathy with Simon Yates on Suila Grande. Considering the outcome of that trip, this comment did nothing to alleviate my growing concerns, but at least it lightened the mood. We carried on up with another bucket seat belay, and a couple of buried axes to belay from. The trouble is that there were no cracks to place protection, and the only places where there was enough material to put a screw or warthog in, were on the steeper ground, where belaying was not on our minds.

Rob and Dan led almost the entire thing, but eventually I was forced to lead up a 45-50 degree snow slope. It was similar to all the other snow we had climbed through previously - Soft, slushy, unconsolidated, offering very little in way of axe placements, and nothing in way of gear. I approached a fork and chose the left route as it appeared steeper, but for a shorter distance, and with actual ice on the surface. I stood underneath the steeper ice, and asked how much rope was left. I did not hear anything of the replies, so tried to work out how far away I was, and realised I would have to create an anchor. There was nothing. No thick ice, no turf, the snow was too soft for half-decent axe placements, or a bollard. I could hardly create a level platform to stand on. Even a bucket seat would have collapsed within moments of my sitting in it. However, I noticed a dark patch within a big sheet of snow on my right. I started clearing the snow with my adze and discovered lots of rock! I knew I would be able to find a crack. I am not ashamed to say that I was momentarily berserk. There had to be a crack. If I could just get a wire placed, then I would be happy to belay Danny, and Rob up to, and above me. In my temporary insanity, I cleared about five cubic metres of snow directly onto Danny and Rob's stance. After a couple of extremely irate spouts of verbal abuse, I placed my axe, hammered it in, and placed my hammer. I didn't even trust my own weight on them, let alone two people combined!
Once Danny reached me, he realised my stance was shit, so he told me to take him off belay, and he climbed the next bit trailing his rope. Rob appeared next to me, and at once tied onto Danny's rope; He climbed above me and within 20 feet had disappeared over the lip. I had no idea how much more of this route was left. There could have been the next 20 feet I could see, or there could have been 200 feet of the same crap snow as the last 200 feet. When I followed Rob onto the top, I was so unbelievably tired, cold, and elated that I offered anyone who helicoptered me off, a princely sum.

Danny and Rob were insatiable. They were so happy, and full of spirit, that I couldn't help but be perked up, and after sharing around what remained all of the remaining chocolate we were off. From the top of the Ben, there are two very specific bearings that you take in order to avoid the infamous Five Finger Gully. Many people have lost their lives by taking poor bearings from the trig point and ended up walking over the cornice that overhangs Five Finger Gully at that time of year. The conditions were complete whiteout, and it was hard enough trying to watch where you were stepping never mind walking a certain number of paces on a particular bearing. I was sure at one point that we were walking too far to the right, and kept trying to walk further to the left, but as Rob was holding the compass, I had to bow to his judgement. It seemed like just a few minutes before we were walking alongside several snow-covered cairns, and then eventually as we stopped below the level of the cloud, we were awarded fantastic views.
Eventually after much bog jumping, and as the sun finally disappeared behind the mountain, we arrived back at the car much to everyone's relief. We threw all of our wet and dirty kit into the car and piled in for the journey back to Danny's house. We had left the car 13 hours ago!
After a couple of pit stops, we arrived at Danny's and Kath (Dan's sister) made us brew's and reheated some soup. We chatted about hat we had just achieved, and all laughed at Danny's little finger which had been quite badly bruised due to the picks on his axes having been filed down by several centimetres. After deciding who would sleep where I crashed on the sofa, with adrenaline still ebbing through my veins, and eventually sleep overtook me.
Early the next morning I was woken as Dan made a phone call. In my semi-conscious state I couldn't quite string together exactly whom he was talking to but I caught two very specific references. Kendal Hospital and frostbite! A little while later on I was getting up, and Dan showed me his previously bruised little finger. It had turned black, and huge blisters had appeared along its entire length.