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I’ve noted this because I couldn’t see any other east ridge descriptions. I’d no camera and Gordon only took one photo so I’ve supplemented it with a couple of clearly historic shots.
Route starts through Coiregrogain and takes the fork that leads to the Ime / Narnain bealach. However after a kilometre by a small dam on the right you climb up into the corrie between Ime and Vane. Immediately you’re aware of the East Ridge of Ime climbing up just ahead of you on your left. The ridge has no path and no sheep either, which means at this time of year it’s a meadow of flowers. One of these, mossy saxifrage I’m assured, was the only photo of the trip.
It’s fun, a series of outcrops you thread around or just occasionally over. You hardly need your hands until, just before the top of the ridge, your way is blocked. Here’s it from Narnain a couple of winters ago. The ridge rises from the right and the block is the obvious notch.
Storer describes a gully which splits this face as “technically easy but exposure and greasy rock may make it seem harder”. Well, yes. When we did this a couple of years ago my mate Ronnie was forced out of the gully. He made it to the top with badly torn breeks and a dislocated shoulder. When they finished with us in A&E, the doctor told us we should have called out the Mountain Rescue. I felt he was dissing an Edinburgh public school ruftie-tuftie who’d done a painful 8k walkout so I pointed out it was now barely four hours since the accident. Yes, he said, but his pal was on call and hadn’t yet had a ride in a helicopter. Never mind, Paisley A&E gives a superb service for hill injuries.
Then and now I bypassed the problem with a 40 metre descent to the right and a haul up a grassy rake. That takes you back to where the ridge joins the SE ridge and soon you join the main path. The summit’s a superb viewpoint and here’s a winter picture of Hunterston B and Paddy's Milestone.
We descended north to the Glas Bhealach. Here’s another shot on a previous ascent of this slope.
The top of the east ridge is in the background, the steep face is just out of the picture on the left. Then it was on down and a 500 metre re-ascent to Ben Vane. We were thinking of taking one of the descents to the dam but time was pressing so it was down the baggers’ path. This has some great moments but Ben Vane's a wee hill that can be approached from almost any side so you kind of wonder at the persistent use of a single deep rut.
