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This is my first post, so forgive me for a little background! My friend Charlie and I are both reasonably experienced fell walkers. We grew up near the Lake District and have enjoyed walking since then, both in the UK and abroad. However, we have had very little experience walking in winter. A recent trip to El Chalten in Patagonia in the late winter there- where I was very lucky with the weather and the scenery was incredible- sparked my interest in starting to up the technical difficulty of my walks and heading out in winter. On that basis, we decided to head up to Scotland in late November.
Charlie and I had a good look at this website and decided that the Ring of Steall looked a great walk. However, conscious of the short days at this time of year and our inexperience in winter conditions, we planned an alternative, simpler walk in case conditions were any less than good. Predictably, as the week wore on, it was increasingly clear that conditions would be bad and the Ring of Steall would be beyond us. We opted for Buchaille Etive Mor as a much shorter and easier walk.
We prepared for our winter excursion as best we could. We both read the walk descriptions on this website together with blog posts here from fellow walkers. We poured over our copy of 'Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills' to see what additional skills and equipment we might need in winter, as opposed to other seasons. For the most part, we had the equipment necessary, but both added an ice axe and C1 crampons to our gear. We decided against investing in B2-3 boots (partly for financial reasons- ice axes and crampons having caused considerable damage to our bank accounts!). This decision proved problematic for me later in the walk, which I'll come to below. In terms of skills, we had never navigated in a white out, but both have reasonable experience at navigating in better conditions. We familiarised ourselves with self-arrest, self-belay and walking in crampons. We checked the MWIS and the Met Office forecasts for the weather. The forecast was for -14 with windchill atop the Buchaille with snow and poor visibility, so we knew that conditions would be challenging.
We arrived at the Altnafeath lay by at about nine and began the walk shortly after. With hindsight, we should have started the walk just before first light as we'd planned for the Ring of Steall, but we banked on the walk taking only around 5 hours. There had been heavy snow and there was thick covering on the ground. It was already snowing as we began the walk and while visibility in the glen was good (Glen Coe was utterly spectucular), the Buchaille was in white at the top.
We made good progress across the moor and began our climb up the gully. After walking for about an hour, a couple ahead of us stopped to put crampons on. We had been unsure exactly when the best time to do this was, so followed suit. There was a lot of snow and it seemed a reasonable decision. It didn't take long for my crampons to start causing me issues. The binding on my crampons that sets their length kept slipping out, meaning that they would increase in length beyond the length of my boot and come loose. I think this was probably due to the flexibility of the sole on my trusty Brashers. B2 boots for Christmas hpefully, and taping the binding in place, should fix this going forwards. We had to stop several times to try to fix my crampons and this slowed us considerably.
As we got further up the gully, the going became more difficult. The path was not visible, the gully became steeper with a mixture of scree and thigh deep snow. The weather was also closing in, with visibility worsening and wind increasing. Squalls of snow like mini-tornado would occasionally buffet us! However, both being reaosnably fit, we made it onto the top of the Buchaille in good spirits and turned left towards Stob Dearg. Although there was plenty of snow, walking on the rock field on the approach to Stob Dearg was very difficult in crampons. We should have taken them off, but- as I imagine more experienced users of crampons are alive to- having gone to the effort of putting the things on, the temptation is to keep them on to the bitter end! We reached summit cairn of Stob Dearg around 12.30-1pm. The couple ahead of us were now heading off the Buchaille, one of them having hurt their leg. The wind was really whipping in now along with the snow. It was seriously cold and visibility was poor at times, although intermittently much clearer, meaning we did at least get some good views!
We sat down in the summit cairn to eat our sandwiches. Now, in summer walking, this makes perfect sense- what better place to enjoy some food before carrying on. It was a mistake. Firstly, our sandwiches had pretty much frozen, so we couldn't eat them. The tube of my platypus had also frozen, so I was restricted to tea. Both Charlie and I took our gloves off to make eating easier and to adjust our gear. I took my crampons off and put my map case in my bag because it had been whacking me in the face for most of the walk and was driving me insane. However, neither of us appreciated quite how quickly your hands get cold in those temperatures. Within a minute, our hands were burning and then completely numb. Because of this, it was a real struggle to get gloves back on. It got to the point where Charlie considered pouring tea on our hands warm them back up. Eventually we got our gloves back on. Writing now from the warmth of my living room it sounds like a trivial incident, but on the hill it didn't feel that way and it felt as if much longer and frostbite would have been a serious threat. In any event, we were a bit rattled and cut short our stop. The glove incident also meant that I didn't manage to eat properly, which compounded our error of stopping at the summit cairn. Charlie somehow managed a (presumably half frozen) pork pie. He approaches pork based food with a near fanatic zeal. I once heard him refuse to ever consider moving to Australia solely on the basis that he'd heard smoked bacon was hard to come by there. Anyway, we pressed on.
We headed across the Buchaille towards the other side of the ridge, intending to follow the ridge, summit the munro at the other side and head down into adjacent glen, as shown in the walk description. However, going was tough. The wind was howling in and the snow was very deep in places, making walking slow and arduous. We reached the small col beneath Stob na Doire at about 2.30 and took stock. Having not checked the map for a while, I mistakenly thought this was the second munro Stob na Broige and that consequently we were now level with our route down. Charlie was concerned about the light, but I thought given that we were already level with our out route, it would be at least worth trying to summit the second munro before turning round at 3.15 wherever we had got to (we had headtorches, so walking in a glen in the dark would have been feasible). Inspection of the map put pay to this notion quite quickly. We saw that the peak in front of us was not Stob na Broige and that it- Stob na Doire- and another peak lay between us and Stob na Broige. Additionally, our out route was the other side of Stob na Doire. With the light against us and tired from walking through deep snow with not enough food, we made the decision to turnaround. We were equidistant on the map between the two routes down, but the route down in front of us was unproven and required us to ascend significantly.
On our way back along the Buchaille, we encountered a couple coming the other way, towards Stob na Doire. We stopped to ask them where they intended to go. They said the down route further along the Buchaille. When we pointed out this was the other side of Stob na Doire and that there was only around an hour and half of light left, they very quickly and sensibly decided to join us in turning around. The chap was a Wigan RFC fan though, so as an avid St Helens fan, I did wonder if I should have encouraged him to go on...
The descent was very difficult at the top. Snow on loose scree is not a pleasant combination to walk on at the best of times and we had to glissade for large parts. I was fairly miserable during this part of the walk. I'm not overly fond of heights, and consequently don't find steep descents much fun. I was glad of my ice axe during the glissading.
We arrived back at the car about 3.30pm, just as the sun was setting, feeling fairly battered and cold but having enjoyed the experience. The weather had (frustratingly) cleared a lot by that point and the Buchaille and Glen Coe were stunning. We repaired to Fort William, where we spent a very pleasant evening refueling with beer, whisky and chips. An advantage of winter walking, it would seem, is that it leaves long evenings for the pub!
While our walk had to be cut short, I feel we both learnt a lot from the experience. It seems to me that in winter conditions, even simple tasks like adjusting your gear can become difficult and even dangerous. While we prepped reasonably well, we are novices in winter conditions and consequently we made some errors that in the end probably prevented us from successfully completing the entire walk. Ultimately, though, safety is paramount and I think we made the right decision by turning around and we certainly made the right decision by not attempting Ring of Steall. Hope this helps any other novices and looking forward to the next one!
(If anyone can advise me in layman's terms how to post photos on here that would be very welcome. Mine apparantly have too many pixels?)
