Buachaille Etive Mor

Saturday we left at 5.30am to go scrambling "hillwalking/climbing" up on Buachaille Etive Mor just up at Glen Coe.


I have done this mountain quite a few times but always with the so called tourist route which is fairly easy and a brilliant walk, our proposed route for today was to take us up what is called curved ridge which is a moderate scramble up the face of the mountain.

The day was very wet and miserable, with visibility being very poor so we set off me, the father in law and my cousin up towards curved ridge "see photo" once we got up to the base of the mountain it became clear we could not see the distinguishing feature we were looking for to start the ascent, so we kept walking until we seen something that resembled where we were to start.

We got to a bit which looked right we checked our reference books and also met up with 3 other climbers who were about to do the same climb and they also said that this looked like the start.

Off we went up the scree "loose rocks" towards the first face, we started to climb up "now remember we don't have ropes as its a scramble and no ropes are needed" it was clear that this was going to be a different kind of scramble due to the slippery nature of the rocks, and to make matters worse those little shits the midge's were in mass and biting like mad "nightmare".

We managed to get up the first part alright but it was pretty treacherous and dangerous, but we have done things like this in the past and this was no different to some, we kept going and quickly realised we were not in the correct area, so we decided to keep going until we seen "bear in mind we were in cloud at this point" something that resembled our route.

Up we went higher and higher and at this point we were slipping and finding it really hard to get up the rock face, we all had slips that could have easily have left us to our death "and I'm not kidding" which is when one of our party took a panic attack and his legs went to jelly. I quickly took hold of the situation and calmed him down whilst trying to get him moving across some of the gully and rock we were on, not just so he was safer, but because the bloody midges were having a feast on my eyes.

We continued to go on until one of our guys took another panic attack and freezed on the side of the rock. It was clear that we could not and should not go any further, but a general rule of scrambling or climbing is that what you go up is not really what you should go down as its very hard and very dangerous. But that's what we had to do before we were in real trouble.

Luckily the father in law brought some slings with him, which could help our descent, the other three guys went first and steadily went down with us following.

I tell you it was a nightmare, any little slide and you were gone, and trust me we were all sliding like mad, so we decided to come down mainly on our bums to steady us and be able to see where we were going in places, not the easiest.

Half way down and the Father in law goes over on his ankle and has major problems continuing as he cant put weight on his ankle, we continue slowly down the mountain.

and the last part was a flat wall which we had to use the slings to down climb, because i was experienced and was the only able one i had to climb down first to make sure there were no problems that we should encounter, our first route which i rekied "not sure of the spelling" was a sheer drop so i found another area to go down. it took us a good bit to get down and an hour to get back to the car. i have include a picture to show you our route and believe me where we were was pretty high up and very exposed... nightmare day but one that was thoroughly enjoyable, better than sitting in front of the computer lol