Walkhighlands

I very much enjoyed your report and pictures; it brought back so many memories as it has been a good number of years since I last climbed Curved Ridge. My first introduction to the Buachaille was by Curved Ridge in 1969; it was a miserable misty day with heavy rain, but it was a great thrill for me as a 16 year old to be up among the crags. The Buachaille became a favourite of mine.
On 11th November,1977 I did an ascent of Curved Ridge with a light covering of snow on it. I was climbing with a friend and we were having a wee rest while watching a couple coming up below us and to our horror we saw the girl slip and fall backwards into Easy Gully at the foot of the Rannoch Wall. We abseiled into the gully fearing the worst, but luckily she had not struck her head and had landed in soft snow. Her friend and I stayed with her and my pal went down to Kingshouse to raise the alarm. Both the Glencoe and Lochaber team were involved in the rescue. While we were waiting the weather deteriorated and it started to snow heavily; as darkness fell we kept our spirits up by singing. Luckily her only injuries were a broken ankle and badly bruised pelvis. Photographs that were taken during the rescue were used on the front cover of Sweep Search by Hamish MacInnes. One of the inset pictures show me with the injured girl and another of her being lowered in the stretcher. The pictures were also used in a display about mountain rescue at the old visitor centre that used to be near Clachaig.


Front cover of Sweep Search


That’s me on the right with my beard iced up.

Beard and a tammy! Got to love the 70s haha. I wish I could grow a beard. Feel like a sub standard mountaineer without one

That's a fascinating story MacAoidh. What's it like to be a celebrity?

Incidentally, my Idiot's Guide is most definitely for a nice hot sunny summer's day with no wind and absolutely perfect conditions. Done it several times this way. Not sure I'd like to tackle it in the snow. A fair weather scrambler, that's me

Never tried the crux gulley, MC. Too wet for my liking and the the crux itself is easy anyway.

Houdi,

I will use your report when we come to do this route next year. Plenty info that will get put to good use. I was never to sure on What the rannoch wall was ! One of your pics makes it more than clear.
And the info on finding the start of the route is a great help ......... i cant wait.

Be prepaired to accept pm's nearer the time..

Dave

I've read 'Sweep Search' endless times and am very familiar with those pics on the front cover... never realised I'd learn any more about them in the future though... The iced-up beard makes it look like you've been there for hours and hours (which possibly you had). Glad she was okayish but it must have been terrible for all concerned!

mountain coward wrote:The iced-up beard makes it look like you've been there for hours and hours (which possibly you had).

The accident happened about 11am and it was 9:30pm when we got back down to the road; just in time to nip along to the Clachaig to have a couple of pints with the rescue team members. It was after 11 when I got back to the youth hostel and the door was locked; the warden wasn’t very pleased with me banging on the door .

Well in the circumstances, it was the hostel warden's hard luck really - special circumstances and all that!

Did it take a long time for the M/Rescue to get to the accident or just a long time to sort out?

mountain coward wrote:
Did it take a long time for the M/Rescue to get to the accident or just a long time to sort out?

There had been a bit of difficultly getting the Glencoe team together as they were all attending a funeral; that’s why the Lochaber team were also called out. When the Glencoe team heard that the Lochaber team were on their way it was a race between them to see who could get there first. It was a relief to see the string of head torches coming up the mountain and if I remember correctly it was after 6pm when the reached us.

Blimey - that is a long time to wait! I was surprised that for Beinns Achaladair & Chreachain the teams came from Oban instead of the much nearer Glencoe - that took 2.5 hours which I thought was a really long time. But 7 hours! That girl must have been feeling truly awful out there in the cold all that time and probably wondering when they were going to come. Did you manage to give her any kind of pain-relieving first aid?

mountain coward wrote:Did you manage to give her any kind of pain-relieving first aid?

I thought my singing would be enough to keep her mind off the pain, but as my singing is quite painful, it probably didn’t help much .

Well it probably did - another pain usually cancels out the first one

davetherave, feel free to pm me. Happy to help if I can.

houdi wrote:davetherave, feel free to pm me. Happy to help if I can.

Thanks Houdi.

Fantastic report!!! Just did Stob Dearg today, and definitely fancy a go at Curved Ridge, hopefully get up again through summer. Cheers for posting

Fantastic report,,my friend and are are doing the Buachaille walk in August on our way to Skye,,a friend suggested the Curved Ridge ascent instead of the usual corrie,,,we kind of looked at each other and laughed. Now we've looked into it more and read some reports,,,its got us quite excited and now we cant wait to give this a go. prob avoid crowberry though if its too wet. Wish us luck