When winter bared its teeth for its last bite of the year, I went over the snowline in the Scottish Highlands to put winter skills into practice with Lakeland’s Hayley Webb Mountain Adventures.
The snow is soft and powdery. The first slope presents no problems for the car, but the second is slippery, and I lose momentum. I change down into second, but the wheels spin, and I start to slide backwards. In reverse gear, I regain control. Safely at rest at the bottom, I deliberate my next move. After a minute or two, a 4×4 appears. It’s Hayley. Hayley Webb is a winter mountain leader and organiser of the winter skills course I’ve been attending for the last three days, here in Glencoe.
“Can you pull in a little? If I can get past, I’ll go first, and you can follow in my tracks. If that doesn’t work, I’ll tow you.”
But Hayley only just manages the top herself, and my attempt to follow results in a backward slide off the road. I come to rest with a back wheel balanced precariously above a ditch. Hayley rings a local garage, who will be about an hour, and suggests I walk back to the Youth Hostel, which has been our home for the last four nights and wait there.
An hour later, my car is sandwiched between two Highway Agency vans, who have suffered the same fate. But the snow is now starting to melt, and the Highway Agency guys have found a grit bin. They have shovels and sacks, and I help them grit the slope. When I look at my car, most of the snow around the wheels has gone, and with a push from the guys I manage to get it back on the road. But there’s another problem. A pick-up coming from the opposite direction is stuck at the top. We wander up with refilled sacks of grit to help free it. It’s the man from the local garage. One of the Highway Agency blokes roars with laughter when he twigs. He turns to me and says, “so he’s come to recover you, but you’ve recovered yourself, and here you are with a shovel, helping to recover him!”
It sums up the morning, and after about half an hour more of teamwork and two more calls from Hayley to check I’m OK, we’re all free to move.
“Are you on your way to work?” My new friend asks.
“No, on my way home. I’ve been here on a winter skills course.”
“Any good?”, he enquires.
“Absolutely brilliant”, I reply. “Apart from yesterday, which was great, but…”
“But what?”
“There wasn’t enough snow.”
He’s still laughing as he climbs into his van and leads our little convoy up the hill and out on to the main road, which thankfully is clear. With the danger over, my mind is free to re-live a tremendous three days.
~
We arrive in Glen Coe on Friday. Rob, Simon, and Helen all battling snow drifts in Yorkshire to get here. Hayley has booked the whole hostel to accommodate our large group of sixteen or so, plus five mountain leaders. After supper, and much convivial chatter, she divides us into groups based on experience. Bryan will take Roger ice-climbing. Hayley, Gemma, and Jules will take the beginners to learn basic crampon and ice-axe techniques. Those of us who have done that tuition before will go with Johnny to put those skills into practice on Aonach Mor. It means an early start, as to begin the day above the snow line means catching the ski gondola which is only open to climbers and hikers for a short window at 8:00 am.
As the Gondola lifts us above steep grassy slopes to where the snow starts, we learn a little about Johnny Walker. He’s a highly experienced winter mountain leader, who taught Hayley and who is close to completing his third round of all the Munros. Twenty years ago, he was made redundant from his job as a sales manager at Sainsburys and decided to turn his mountaineering qualifications into a business. It meant a drop in salary, but his quality of life improved immeasurably. His family quickly noticed his surge in energy and the full throttle return of his sense of humour. A persistent stomach complaint disappeared overnight. It’s a striking illustration about the nature of negative stress. The relentless treadmill of arbitrary, ever-shifting targets can grind us down, yet facing genuine danger, and taking responsibility for shepherding others through potentially perilous conditions brings us alive. It’s something we respond to positively, if like Johnny, we’ve learned the skills and techniques to negotiate the challenges.
The snow line appears, and I’m buzzing with excitement. Keen to learn from this man.
“I’m pernickety”, he warns, like an amiable sergeant major. “I’ll pick you up on every little thing you do wrong”.
Good. That’s what I’m here for.
He turns to me with a beaming grin. “For a start, you’ve got your gaiters on the wrong legs.”
As we emerge from the Gondola station, Johnny shows us the avalanche forecast for this side of the mountain. It’s moderate, meaning there should be no naturally occurring avalanches, but avalanches triggered by human activity are a possibility. The risks lie in the sheltered areas where snow has been allowed to drift. He points to a hollow between two ridges over to our right. It’s loaded with softer snow. We’re heading for the exposed ridge to our left where the snow will be compacted and frozen, and highly unlikely to shift.
As we climb towards the ridge, the slope steepens, and the snow becomes firm. It’s time to don crampons.
“Uh uh, no sitting”, orders Johnny. “Stand with the crampon placed uphill from you, and step into it. Make sure your toes are right in then step down into the heel with your full weight to make sure you’re in the crampon not on it. Otherwise, it’ll come off.”
This happened to me last year on Cairngorm, so I heed the warning although faffing with the straps is harder in this position. After inspection and adjustments from Johnny, he turns our attention to our ice axes.
“Who remembers how to walk with an ice axe?” he asks.
“I do”, I offer, and demonstrate a zigzag, keeping the ice axe on my uphill side by swapping it and my single trekking pole over when I change direction.
“Well, you’re doing that all wrong”, says Johnny with a smile. “You must never take your hand of the ice axe. If you slip, it’s there to save you, but only if your hand is on top.”
He demonstrates tucking a pole under a shoulder, placing one hand on top of the other over the axe, before withdrawing the bottom one, and retrieving the pole. Then to reinforce the point he demonstrates a slip. As his back foot shoots out and he falls, his forearm straightens along the shaft of the axe, his top hand pulling it down deeper into the compacted snow, while his bottom hand grasps the shaft, anchoring him securely. It’s so rapid and sudden, it’s highly convincing. He kicks in with his crampons and stands up.
“That’s why you must always keep a hand on the ice axe”, he says. “That slip wasn’t intentional, by the way.”
With the gradient stiffening, Johnny shows us different techniques for ensuring our crampons give optimum bite. French technique or flat footing involves keeping your foot flat with the surface of the ice or snow and stepping down firmly to ensure all points on the crampons dig in. It is easiest when the gradient is gentle, but when walking on a zig zag across a steep slope you must roll your ankle downhill to keep all spikes in contact. Austrian technique or front pointing tackles the slope head-on, kicking in with the front four spikes of each crampon. American or hybrid technique combines the two, front pointing with one foot while flat footing with the other.
There’s a lot to think about and safety hinges on getting it right. Luckily, we have two pairs of expert eyes checking our progress. While Johnny leads, Kerry walks last, watching from behind. Kerry is an engineer, who is up in Scotland working on a new hydro-electric dam, but she is an experienced mountaineer and a long-term friend of Johnny and Hayley, and she has come along to help out.
“Keep your foot flat”, she advises. “Remember to roll your ankle”.
“To front-point, make sure you are kicking in with four points of your crampon, not just the front two”, Johnny instructs from up ahead. Then, when my head is swimming with the minutiae of foreign technique, he says, “just think about where you’re placing your foot”.
And with that the brain fog clears. This is not a series of elaborate dance steps, it’s common-sense. Just look and think. By the time we reach the ridge, it is starting to come naturally. It’s just as well, as here the gradient is more challenging. We are walking on névé or snow ice: snow that has started to melt and then frozen again, becoming hard and compacted. Here, technique really counts.
At first, we ascend on diagonals, but then Johnny has us tackle a section head on, kicking in with our crampons and daggering with our ice axes. It’s hard work, but the tools and techniques do their job, and no-one goes hurtling off down the slope toward Loch Lochy, which glistens like blue crystal in the distance.
At the top of the Aonach an Nid ridge, we reap rich awards for our strenuous exertions. Ahead, a sparkling snowfield snakes round to the summit of Aonach Mor. Eastern slopes drop away abruptly, loaded with driven snow and crowned with elegant cornices. The sky is ridged with fluffy white clouds like ethereal salmon scales. Below, sparse wisps of cirrus float like spray on a sea of cerulean blue, and the horizon is a band of warm yellow, gilded with sun. Behind us, the landscape below is a winter canvas of umber, chocolate, and cinnamon; rolling hills frame languid stretches of cool blue where Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil touch toes.
With wind chill, the mercury would read below minus ten. I am wearing slim liner gloves to avoid getting too hot and sweaty during the stiff climb. I had planned to swap them for heavier duty alternatives now the gradient is becoming more forgiving, but my hands are still warm, and Johnny gives some interesting advice.
“If your fingers or toes start to get cold, throw on another layer. If your body senses that your core is cooling down, it concentrates your blood flow around your vital organs, leaving less to warm your extremities. Keep your core warm, and blood flow to your fingers and toes is greater. The real trick, though is to keep moving.”
And with that, the prospect of a rest before we strike on for the summit evaporates. It proves sage advice, however. I never do swap my gloves, and my fingers are never less than toasty.
As we approach the top, a sweeping vista of the Mamores unfurls to the south. A multitude of cobalt peaks poke through frozen cloaks of white. Cotton wool clouds kiss the tops likes puffs of steam. Closer in, the summit of Ben Nevis rises like a colossal Sphinx’s head, hewn from snow-streaked granite, and in the foreground, like a pair of white lions-couchant, is the CMD arête.
From the summit, we descend to the col and tackle the stiff climb up to the higher summit of Aonach Beag. Ice climbers are negotiating frozen waterfalls on its western crags. I suffer a shiver of nervous anticipation. Rob and I are due to go ice-climbing with Bryan on Monday. I hope he has something a little gentler in mind, that looks extreme! On top, Caroline is beaming to have bagged another Munro as she is well on her way to completing her first round. We are all feeling beatific now with the exertion, the satisfaction of new skills starting to click, the crystalline sparkle of sunlight on snow, and the staggering expanse of Scottish Highlands stretching out in every direction.
But we cannot bask in the glow of elation too long. Aware that in reality, we are cooling down rapidly, and we have the last gondola to catch, Johnny spurs us on to begin retracing our footsteps. Back down to the col we go, and back up to the summit of Aonach Mor, though mercifully, we return to the Gondola station down a slightly more forgiving slope than the Nid ridge. En route, I get chatting to Helen. Like me, she lives for the outdoors and days on the hills. She has teenage children she is loath to uproot, but when the opportunity arises, it is her dream to forego urban living and move somewhere more remote, perhaps up here. Having made a similar move to the Lakes, twenty-five years ago, I assure her that she will not regret it. I later learn Helen is something of an Instagram influencer; as @thatSoberHiker, Helen’s stunning photographs and inspiring posts about nature as a means to maintaining good mental health have won her thousands of followers.
The next day a turbo thaw sets in and the group as a whole braves rain, sleet, and brutal winds to climb Stob Coire Raineach. The path is treacherous, and while it may lack yesterday’s picture postcard winter conditions, learning how best to negotiate a mix of bare rock, sheet-ice, and slush hiding ice is every bit as valuable. The wind really kicks in at the col, and Roger’s fifteen-year-old son, Owen, who has already won widespread popularity with his gregarious nature and warm humour, leads something of a revolt.
“Why would anyone do this for pleasure?” He exclaims with a grin. “It’s horrendous”.
Hayley laughs but takes it as a cue to offer to split the group. “This is why we have more than one mountain leader. If anyone has had enough and wants to go back, come and stand over here with me. Anyone who wants to continue to the summit, stay there with Johnny”.
Owen walks towards Hayley and nearly all the group follow. Owen had simply voiced what nearly everyone was thinking. A hard-core quartet of Simon, Roger, Johnny and I are left to bag another Munro.
On the drive back, I ask about the vandalised cottage in an idyllic mountain setting up in the pass. It looks so out of character to have suffered that fate—boarded up and daubed with graffiti, when everything else, even an old stone barn, looks cared for.
“Oh, don’t you know?” Replies Johnny. “It was Jimmy Saville’s house.”
The thaw and the burgeoning winds put paid to our hopes of ice-climbing on Monday, and with no prospect of activity on the tops, Hayley takes us on a gentle walk to An Steall, Scotland’s second largest waterfall. We brave a precarious wire bridge to get up close. With the spray from the thunderous cataract on our faces, I turn to see Owen beaming in wonder.
“It’s quite something isn’t it,” I say.
“It’s magnificent,” he utters, awestruck. If yesterday was “horrendous”, today has him bowled over with the sublime majesty of this elemental force of nature. Roger did well to bring him. He will not forget his first trip to Scotland.
And I’ll not forget this trip either. Magnificent scenery in inspiring company; shared passions, and warm humour; new skills learned, existing ones honed; and on Saturday, the most perfect of all winter mountain days.
You can find Hayley Webb’s Mountain Adventures page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/HayleyWebbAdventures/
