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Date. Saturday 29th January
Completed by. Dave, Julie and Wilson
Weather. Good for walking, poor views and no wind
Time. 11hrs 50mins
Distance. 22.7km
Ascent. 2012m
Hills.
Munro’s x 2
Corbett’s x 0
Grahams x 0
Binnein Beag and Sgurr Eilde Mor
Starting from.
Mamores lodge
Is there any truth in the title I gave to this trip report! Unfortunately yes.
Had plans on completing the Eastern Momores on Saturday 29th. Being based at Blackwater Hostel it was the ideal choice.
Ill skip the report for now and go straight to our unfortunate incident. Starting our walk with Sgurr Eilde Mor we then moved onto Binnein Beag. All was well at this point.
Our ice axes had been in use since we started climbing Sgurr Eilde Mor.
We decided to fit our crampons on our descent from Binnein Beag, we both new they would be needed when ascending the slopes of Binnein Mor. The views to Binnein Mor were limited through the extensive cloud, and visual assessment was hard to verify.
Progress up the lower slopes was straightforward, the winter equipment was working well and come 2pm we had reached approx 950m. Also at this time heard the Helicopter over head but could see nothing due to the cloud. I think this was the helicopter that was out on exercise when the chap took a tumble off Sgurr Choinnich Mor.
At this point we decide on making our way up through the steep crags. After sometime we find this too difficult due to the ice and change tactics. We start to traverse round to our right via the Snow /ice climbing slightly higher as we went.
Without really realising we were soon getting out of our depth…. As we traversed I spot a weakness in the crags about 20 / 30m up, and ask Julie if she wants to ascend to see if we can follow safely. She gets up to the exit but she cant break out because the ice is solid. I shout, “ forget it and come back down”.
As she re-handed the ice axe and turned to answer she slipped and was suddenly on a downward plunge. This must have been terrifying for her; it scared the hell out of me. She had travelled about 350feet down the ice field at high speed. She lay still for a while then I saw her moving, I could hear her moaning to start with, thankfully I started to get some sense in her replies. I can then see she has got herself in a sitting position. She tells me she thinks there is nothing serious the matter.
I got down to meet Julie as soon as I could, She is a bit disorientated, and she thinks she may have broke her hand and some ribs. She has a cut to her lower leg (crampon gash) and has badly hurt her shoulder. Luckily her head is fine apart from some minor cuts on her face and there is no damage to her legs.
After some comforting and patching up Julie says she is fit enough to get back to the car some 8km + away. I empty the contents of her bag in to mine as to make her load lighter.
We headed for Coire an Lochain, cutting round Sgor Eilde Beag. Then joining the path at NN 208 634, from there we had another 3km to reach the car.
We got back to Blackwater hostel at 7.30pm and decide to just stay the night and to leave early Sunday morning. Come Sunday Julie looks like she has been in a battle. Massive bruising to her shoulder, left hand, lower left leg and lower back. She has superficial marking on her face and has problems with her ribs.
The effort she put in after the accident. That 8km hike back to the car was amazing. She certainly has far more drive than I ever thought she had, she deserves plenty credit for that alone.
We later found that Julie has at least 2 broken ribs and has extensive bruising to various parts of her body.
We know we made mistakes on the day, I only hope we can learn from them.
Dave
Below are some pics of our day.
- Sgurr Eilde Mor Summit
- Sgurr Eilde Mor Summit
- grey corries from Binnein Beag
- grey corries from Binnein Beag
- Binnein Mor from Binnein Beag
- Sgurr Eilde Mor from Binnein Beag
- Sgurr Eilde Mor
- Julie ascending Binnein Mor
- wilson ascending Binnein Mor
- Julie ascending Binnein Mor with Binnein Beag behind.
- final climb
- final climb
- accident spot
- Ben
- Descending Binnein Mor
- Sgurr Eilde Mor
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