CMD Arete and the fleeing the Invasion of Ben Nevis

[Cairngorm creeper]

The CMD Arete is a walk we have delayed embarking on for far too long. At first it seemed too scary as well as too long and too much ascent . Over the past two or three years we have overcome our fear of heights and learnt to enjoy narrow ridges but there still seemed a mystique attatched to the CMD Arete and we spent a lot of time devising different routes that included it and made several unusual ascents of Ben Nevis , but we always managed to avoid the bit where we were meant to go up and down the CMD Arete
A one day weather window between rain and wind, , our packs were ready for a walk around Loch Muick when we suddenly changed our minds and decided to go for the CMD Arete by the standard route from the North Face Car park. .

The Route

The alarm was set for 6am, but we were wide awake at 4, (not that we were nervous or excited) . The early start meant we missed all the construction traffic on the A86 at Loch Lagan and we were parked and smothered in appropriate chemicals by 07:20.
Our walks often follow a similar pattern which start with getting lost on forestry footpaths today was an exception, the footpath was signposted, NorthFace Trail , so we followed the sign but then spent the next half hour convinced that trail was different to the footpath and we were going the wrong way .

The North Face Trail

It was a great relief when we reached the viewpoint and could see our route ahead.

The Veiw Point

Feeling more relaxed we were started to look about for possible places to cross the Allt a Mhuilain on the way back. We noted the bridge that crosses just before the weir, a possibility, although we would have to climb a fence to reach it and so we also looked at the landover ford just as you come out of the forestry. The ford would be crossable, but not with dry feet (oh why did we forget the pocket wellies ) . but first we had a mountain to climb and an Arete to walk across, so we decided to worry about the descent later.
The path up to Carn Mor Dearg started about 1km the forest and was unrelentingly boggy and the top section was loose and steep, but for all its problems there are good views looking down across Fort William

Looking Across Fort Willaim

and it took great will power keep moving rather than just standing still and admiring the North Face of Ben Nevis .

The North Face of Ben Nevis

The CMD Arete

The path brought us up the to ridge of Carn Mor Dearg just before Carn Dearg Meadhonach, a red mountain that justifies its name.

Carn Dearg Meadhonach

Then the weather suddenly changed from warm and sunny to windy, cold and misty.

Carn Mor Dearg Summit

As soon as we reached Carn Mor Dearg summit we added extra layers of clothing and wondered if the weather may give us an excuse to abandon this trip, but feeling brave, we decided to brew up and hope that it cleared.

Waiting for the weather to improve

Another small group arrived on the summit, also stopping to put on warm clothing and have an early lunch. The waiting paid off, the cloud blew over and the wind dropped. Oh My! It looks like we will be going across the CMD Arete after all.
The first part of the arete involved easy scrambling, down then up, we were doing our best to stick to the crest although other walkers seemed to make more use of the paths. whenever one could afford to move ones eyes from ones feet the views of the Mamores and of Ben Nevis and the North Face were superb.

Start of the Arete

The start was the most scrambley

The Path in and out of the Rock

Views Across the Mamores

Sticking to The Crest

We let other walkers past and continued our route along the top of the crest taking hundreds of pictures. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. At one point we did stray down to the path but quickly righted our error and scrambled up a steep section to make amends.

Penance for Diverting onto the path

.
I had alway assumed the narrow section of the Arete to be knife edge and unavoidable. In fact it was quite possible to miss it out. The fact that we did not find it very exposed is probably a result of our exposure training, I am sure a couple of years ago we would have been trying to rig up a rope for protection.

Is this the Arete?

Do you mean the narrow section

A pose for the camera

And then it was all over and we had reached the cairn. As we had the place to ourselves we decided to enjoy our solitude a bit longer and have lunch.

And its all over

Jeremy Jetboil enjoying the view

.
We had wondered how we would cope with the slog up the boulder fields to Ben Nevis summit but found we still had a surprising amount of energy and the boulder field did not seem as punishing as we remembered it form one of our earlier explorations,

The Boulder Fields of the Ben

The Summit of Ben Nevis was another matter. It was busy, but rather than the usual happy walkers it seems to be full of louts drinking, shouting, burping farting and throwing litter around. We could not wait to get away and I was really hoping that it would start to hail or snow just to teach them some respect. It was a great relief to reach the halfway Lochan and head of towards the north face leaving the crowds behind.

Glad to Get to Away

We took the path leading down past Lochan Meall an Suide then followed the Allt Coire an Lochan, first on the the RH bank then crossing over to left as we decided to head for the bridge rather than the ford. We followed the burn until we reached the fence. Previous walkers had bent a hole in the fence which was easy enough to step through and avoided causing any more damage. As we continued down the hill we had two tricky burn crossings, the burns both had stepping stones but we were in deep ditches. At one stage we ended up climbing down a tree and then crawling up heather the other side .
We had one last look back,

One last look back

and we were across the bridge on the forest trail .
Reaching the car at 18:30. The CMD Arete at last , a fantastic route but not so scary or hard as we imagined.