The Mountaineering Council of Scotland

Issue 19 August 2003

FEATURES Kyzil Asker Dreaming By Guy Robertson Dreams are a great source of energy which is just as well because a really big, serious climb can be a great source of dreams! Without dreams we would tend to wander aimlessly between routes, unfocused and struggling for drive and inspiration. Eventually, we hope, our dreams become reality and soon become memories, making us richer along the way. Although the physical act of climbing is immensely pleasurable in itself, our dreams and memories seem to make the whole thing so much bigger. And so it is as I sit back and recount my own memories from a recent expedition to a mountain called Kysyl Asker in the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgystan. Our team, the self-appointed “2002 Scottish Kyzyl Asker Expedition”, was four in number. We had youth and talent but little experience beyond Scotland. I was the “Old Man” of the expedition, an aging thirty-something amongst a pack of young tigers - Es Tressider, Neal Crampton and Blair Fyffe. Our original goal was to attempt the impressive 1500m North West Face in alpine style. This had been climbed once by a siege of Russians on the only ascent of the mountain. This option soon sunk away however, like numerous expeditions before ours, when our driver informed us that the Spring rains had made the ground too soft to get safely established within striking distance of the face. Instead, our Base Camp was at the snout of the three Komorova Glaciers, some way further to the east. It was soon apparent the team members had very different ambitions. After two weeks of acclimatisation, including successful forays up to peaks of 4500-5000m, we split into two pairs. Having seen a literally eye-popping picture in the American Alpine Journal, Es and I were mesmerised by the South East Face. Blair and Neal were more relaxed, and we went our separate ways. It took a precious three days, over a 4,800m col, before Es and I were ensconced in the shadows of the South East Face. It was a scene of Tolkeinesque proportions; a mile-high gothic cathedral laced with monolithic towers and glittering streams of diamonds and pearls. From summit to glacier fell a giant arête - one and half times the size of El Cap - a worthy challenge for those pushing envelopes in the field of suffering. Immediately left of this lay our own intended route; an icy gully-come-groove running the entire height of the face. We'd never seen anything quite like it. “Surely the Best Unclimbed Ice Climb in the World!” proclaimed Es. There was no doubt, this would require the skills of the Jedi. On the first attempt we left camp at 3pm, with the suns rays safely beyond the face. Our intention was to rattle up the introductory pitches and bivouac before dark, leaving us well-placed for an attack at first light, before the sun made its presence felt. This was a crucial concern that proved ultimately to be our nemesis. We took only synthetic sleeping bags, a bivvy shelter, a stove and just enough food for five days. Our rack was minimal - mainly ice screws and pegs - with a sprinkling of aid gear should an emergency arise. After about 300m of soloing up 60o ice, a short mixed pitch to find a bivouac out of the firing line bore no fruit. Reality soon set with the sun, and we resigned ourselves to chopping a bum ledge out from the ice. It was never going to be comfy but with an overhang above our heads it at least seemed reasonably safe. The next morning wasn't promising. Around 2am, after some rest but no sleep, we made a brew and talked tactics. Despite a clear sky the temperature was an uncomfortably warm zero degrees - far from ideal with a million tonne guillotine above our heads. But in the name of Scottish Winter Optimism we decided to give it a go. Starting out in the dark it wasn't long before we ground to a halt at the base of the route's most prominent single feature - a 250m overhanging ice smear, crowned by a threatening ring of Damoclean icicles. The heart-lurching “whrrrrrrr” of falling ice steadily increased in intensity. The decision to retreat was made quickly and it wasn't long before we were cowering from the deluge under the sanctuary of an overhang. Within a couple of hours what had been a continuous plume of impeccable, creamy water ice had become a veritable river, and all we could do was hide. In the early evening, with acute Harnessitis setting in, we made our escape like Tesco chickens on Christmas Eve. Back at camp we assessed the situation. Did a thaw of such magnitude take place every day? If not, what was the extent of a more 'normal' thaw? Could we climb through it, especially higher up? Or was the whole enterprise simply unachievable? On the positive side, stonefall had been infrequent, which suggested the daily thaw perhaps didn't usually run too deep. Due to this first round failure our food situation necessitated a return to Base Camp - 15km away - and this gobbled up more precious time. We were getting much fitter though and returned in three days. That left nine days until Zero Hour, when our driver would return to pick us up. However, on the return hike to Advanced Base snow started to fall heavily, leaving a deadly veil over the crevasses underfoot. And when we finally reached camp, our buttocks firmly clenched, the snow continued. And continued. We reasoned that the weather would clear up by the time we had rested, but how wrong we were! Inside our little tent the snow went on unabated. On the first morning I awoke to complete silence. “Aha!” I thought. But to my horror the tent door was peeled back to reveal a solid wall of wind-packed snow blocking out all noise and light. We had quite literally been buried in twenty-four hours. I slumped back into the tent and resigned myself to yet another day of inventive chapatti making. How naïve to think that such a hostile world might revolve around us. After fully three days it finally stopped. We had five days left, and no chance of setting foot on the route until two metres of fresh snow had settled. We sat helpless outside the tent - in perfect cold weather - watching juggernaut avalanches pummelling the glacier all around us. We'd need at least a day to dig ourselves out and get back to Base and three days was hardly going to be enough. But we had become obsessed. Seeing a photograph of this face is one thing but it's another entirely to live and breathe in its shadow for a week. We both knew we would have to give it one final go. Our tactics changed slightly, leaving late in the evening to climb as far as possible in the dark, aiming at the very least to gain the bottom of the big ice smear. This could then be dispatched before the sun appeared, leaving what looked like a couple of easy rope lengths to a large snow ledge. From there, we could either fuel up and keep going or wait for the sun to disappear once more. If we were really lucky we'd get cold cloudy weather and simply climb non-stop! It went extremely well at first, conditions near perfect. We raced to our previous high point in a mere four hours, being fitter and able to climb more direct. Then, after a heady cocktail of baby food, blueberry soup and Powerbars, we launched onto the smear. It was truly awesome - sustained pure ice for four full 60m rope lengths at 85 - 95o. And this was just one feature on a 1300m route! Everything looked rosy until Es pulled through the icicle fringe at the top, and things decidedly took a turn for the worse. I hung in silence on a brace of screws watching the dreaded sun creeping further west, nudging shadows from the face. I felt strangely helpless and vulnerable as the first tinkling chunks whizzed by, Es cursing increasingly loudly from his precarious perch high above. Eventually, I received my cue. It was steep and strenuous, and cranking desperately through the overhanging lip I was greeted by a most disturbing sight. Es was quite obviously far from content with his predicament. I couldn't see what he was belayed to but I thought it best not to ask - his gaunt expression said it all. More worrying still was the heat of the sun, as the ice here was steep and only a few inches thick. We exchanged un-pleasantries and I traversed gingerly out right, accepting without choice what was inevitably going to be a soul-searching lead. A bit of climbing Zen was on the cards, and what followed was indeed a most alarming endeavour. The wall steepened gradually from 80 through to 90°, the ice itself becoming thinner and progressively more detached from the rock underneath. With no protection whatsoever, 25 metres from a diabolical belay, the final ten feet to easier ground were executed within a psychological vacuum. Slumped onto the edge of a little hanging ice slope above the top of the wall, I awoke from my fugue, struggling to cope with a combined wave of nausea, euphoria and overwhelming relief. The sun had struck again and the only feeling missing was hope. But we couldn't give up. Desperately we took it in turn to climb up, down and across, this way and that, but everywhere the ice was thin and melting and simply couldn't justify an attempt. We thought of using aid but it didn't seem appropriate after what had gone before. And so, after another long wait, we retreated once more, crushed and melting in the heat of the sun. This dream would have to wait. As we trudged back up over the col at the start of the long haul back to Base, I slumped down for a moment, turned around and took a final look at the dream unfolding from the clouds in front of me. Excitement, anticipation, uncertainty, familiarity, apprehension and a powerful feeling of belonging all cursed through my veins simultaneously. I felt little disappointment and I was at once frustrated and inspired. A new dream had been born and a new inner energy found. Truth be told, I'd never felt more alive. The Scottish Kyzyl Asker Expedition 2002 would like to thank the following organisations for their generous support: Mount Everest Foundation, British Mountaineering Council, Mountaineering Council of Scotland, Nick Estcourt Award, Liam Elliot Award, Shipton-Tillman Award (Gore), Lyon Equipment Award, Mountain Equipment and Scarpa. Es and Guy are planning to return to Kyzyl Asker in 2004 for another attempt on the South East Face.

This issue included the Climb Through History report : The Witches Step, An ascent of Ceum na Caillich by Mike Robb This issue included the Walking Wild feature Arran; Scotland in Miniature By Irvine Butterfield   A Ben for all Seasons by John Allen Sitting regally above Loch Tay mid-way along its northern shore, Ben Lawers dominates a range of 1,000m peaks. Neither rugged nor abrupt, it oversees its lofty neighbours by 100m without obvious superiority. Its highest point is the centrepiece among other benign and rolling giants. The summit is only 16ft short of 4000ft. at 3984ft (1214m). Just over a hundred years ago the highest point was 4000ft, give or take minor construction work, for one Malcolm Ferguson and thirty or so other labourers built a 16ft cairn on top of that provided by nature. What such men nowadays could do for Munro baggers doesn't bear thinking about. Anyway he was saved from eternal damnation by subsequent cairn demolishers and weathering, the same effects now being about to collapse the trig point, and a good thing too; redundant rubbish set in concrete they are. The highest natural point is still the ninth highest in Scotland. Traditionalists, Victorians and peakbaggers would now claim Ben Lawers as an easy day for a lady, foreshortened so to speak from above, and accessible from below to the 1200ft (420m) contour by car. The usual starting point is the National Trust for Scotland Visitor Centre (GR 609378) which most people reach by car up a steep, single-track road, thereby saving 600ft of ascent on foot from the main A827 road. Ascent on a sunny day in summer is no more than that of a Corbett from sea level; a welcome stroll on a renovated path (at a moderate angle for the most part). Winter days are of course different, with a taste of the Arctic, wild and wildernessful, beautiful but hostile and scary if you are unprepared. Just one such wintry day in November caught us with a plan to do the ridgeway round of Lochan na Cat from Lawers. Mild and wet until the immediately preceding days, Ian Marshall and I spotted a sudden cooling of airs announced by the BBC weather gurus. Horseracing men would have predicted from soft to firm, frozen even, as we moved to the freezing level above the boggy jumps, fences and hedges beyond Machuim Farm. Rising northwards to the long south ridge of Meall Greigh, we were caught by a young stallion, Ben Pearce, and would have been overtaken, but the three of us fell in convivially for the rest of the round. At this point we were sheltered from the northerly wind but got caught in a heavy snow squall which forced us into winter jackets. Though the squall had passed by the time we reached the summit, chilling northerlies reinforced the wintry feeling, so much that I put on all my spare clothing. Footfalls on the frozen and slippery ground became tentative. Each man retreated into his hood and mittens, watched out for glazed rocks now smeared with frozen sleet, concentrated on avoiding the winter accident statistics. As we set off from a draughty snack stop, Ben produced his hand-held gizmo, no bigger than a compass and announced a temperature of 2°C, wind speed at 25mph and wind chill at minus 14°C. I might have guessed correctly the wind speed, but not the temperature (seemingly high) and wind chill (low). Beware the wind! There is something very satisfying about keeping out the weather and yet being able to appreciate the scenery from the safe cocoon of warm clothing. On this day sunlight spread an autumnal glow of colour over many and distant landscapes from Ben Chonzie in the south via Ben Cruachan to Nevis in the north. I even had the novelty of a view from Meall Garbh, never before having seen An Stuc from there, and appreciating the effect of light and shadow across the eastern slopes and the architecture of Cat Gully, and of sunlight on a thin cover of snow on the green turf of Meall Garbh's summit, now a luminous lime green. Never underestimate the ascent of An Stuc. Recently elevated to Munro status, without Ferguson this time, but with the interference of the SMC list makers, it is steep-sided enough to turn an unwary slip into a catastrophe, summer or winter. Today it was not wet, just hard with ice and a veneer of sleet. Once over its table-top summit we were soon approaching the long final drag up Ben Lawers, to its nearly 4000ft, and on the summit, Ben's gizmo again: 0°C, 40mph, minus 20°C (wind chill). At this moment on the summit, struck with penetrating cold, but captivated by the low angled lighting, we experienced a profound moment, yet transitory as the passing clouds, a snapshot beyond the camera, a painting beyond the canvas. Sometimes nature just hits you in the eye. So sublime. Ian had been correct in predicting 7 hours for the round trip. Descent of the east ridge is over a stony but gradual path, the black depths of Lochan na Cat to the left, sunken below the high circuit of ridges we had earlier traversed; thence to heathery and boggy ground to the burn side path and Lawers. Daylight had plunged into dusk, farmed fields, barking dogs, moonless. In 1952 the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board needed to park its equipment during construction of the dam at Lochan na Lairige, despite the ethos of untouchability implicit within the Percy Unna benefaction two years earlier, which enabled the NTS to purchase Ben Lawers itself. In principle he had rejected man-made developments which might spoil Scottish landscape. Lochan na Lairige was not part of the Lawers purchase, but improved access was needed to the lochan for the construction work, and, like it or not, the NTS got improved access to Ben Lawers, followed by a carpark. Whether Unna turned in his grave is not known (he died on Beinn nan Aighenan in an accident), but some of his surviving colleagues say he did. 'Creeping development' had begun and subsequently the Visitor Centre - no ice creams though - was built at the car park site, and has been recently renovated. However, further development here in the form of permanent apparatus for skiing has nose-dived with the recent removal of the skiers hut from Coire Odhar; cross country skiing is more appropriate, without the draglift contraptions of the downhill version. The NTS has moved even further in the direction of conservation and proactive intervention to save and promote what nature intended. Such 'developments', if that is the right word, now actively encourage rare plant species and communities, bio-diversity, landscape quality and conserve the considerable archaeological heritage. Habitat restoration is in order. In the past man has abused the health of the land for sheep, grouse, deer. Collectors of rare plant species had raped almost to extinction what nature had spent the last 10,000 years providing. The timescale to reverse these processes will take decades, maybe even centuries, well beyond the lifetime of the current property manager/senior Ranger Naturalist, David Mardon, who has been overseeing the project for over 15 years already. Professional mountain footpath contractors have restored the eroded path to the summit of Ben Lawers from this side, with the help of the Army Air Corps helicopters and pilots needing practice in the conveyance of heavy loads. Maybe the decades of despoliation and plunder of nature's resources will be reversed. To appreciate the start already made, we have to put up with cars, deer fencing and popular tourist paths. The results will be best judged by our children's children. To lift one's spirit, I recommend the spring and summer to appreciate what the sunny side of Ben Lawers has to offer now, especially for those whose eyes are open to the wonderful variety of vegetation, and should increasingly offer during the rest of the 21st century. Driving off the A827 the narrow road enters a tunnel of darkness and deathliness that is a time-expired forestry plantation. At the sudden exit, a gently sloping, heavily nibbled grassland, rises almost uninterupted to the summit. You motor for another mile, swerving to avoid sheep, dodging into the single track passing places and arrive at the Information Centre (and blessedly no picnic tables, et al.); yes there is a toilet block; and yes, a Mountain Rescue Post too, but don't expect a helpful little man in a day-glo suit to save you here. For that your number is 999 (no phone box). And, by the way, only Vodafone mobiles work on the highest part of Ben Lawers; neither BT Cellnet nor Orange are any use there, according to NTS researches in 2001. The path from the car park towards Ben Lawers is immediately obvious, and takes you into an 'exclosure', an exclusion zone which keeps out the nibblers (sheep and deer). A good plan is first to walk round the Interpretation Centre, and then take the nature trail through the exclosure. After the short nature trail you rejoin the main path, leave the exclosure and head uphill to a junction where the left hand route takes you up Coire Odhar at a modest gradient for a couple of kilometres to a bealach. It thus by-passes the peak of Beinn Ghlas (3657ft, 1103m). To include the latter Munro, take the renovated zig-zag path straight ahead at the junction, and start ascending steeply, eventually reaching the summit of Beinn Ghlas. This is a good place to begin really to appreciate the bounties on offer on Ben Lawers, particularly in spring. Scattered patches of snow may litter the southern slopes where the arctic alpine flora prospers on calcareous soils - purple saxifrage; and cushions of moss campion; and primroses, violets, anemones and orchids. If you leave the path and venture into these coires, you might find rarer species. They are there, and will prosper again so long as over-enthusiastic botanists leave them alone, and grazing rights are removed and deer are culled more severely than in the 20th century. Perhaps then the deer fences can be removed. At the summit there is not much shelter from the wind but walk eastwards for about 100 metres and you will find a complete change of scene. Below the highest point by only about 50ft is a hollow of boulders chaotic in the main, but reassembled in two places into high, walled windbreaks. This is the 'crater' which the constructors of the highest cairn on a 'Munro' probably used as their quarry. It is an odd corner of Ben Lawers, the top of the south ridge, on a peak otherwise gentle on the feet and knees by normal routes. Back on the summit on a temperate summer's day northward views plunge into the inky blackness of Lochan na Cat, across the face of An Stuc and Meall Garbh and way out to Ben Alder, the Cairngorms, Ben Nevis, the peaks of Glencoe and the south-western highlands. Even if not quite 4000ft, a raised hand on top of the trig point might just make it! But be quick, the trig point might fall over (there are old timbers to support its base). Not even the Ordnance Survey is obliged nowadays to maintain it, and the adjacent indicator column could also suffer terminal decline in the weather around the 4000ft level in the Southern Highlands of Scotland.

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