21st October 2012 - Castle Ridge on Ben Nevis

Looking out over Fort William

Approaching the North Face

Me with Castle Ridge in the distance

The Castle and Castle Ridge

Preparing to set off

RAF Rescue Helicopter at Douglas Boulder

The first slimey pitch

Me with CMD, NE Buttress etc. in the background

Anna with some stunning scenery behind her

Basking in the sunlight on the ridge summit

The sun dying behind the clouds

Stunning sunset colours over Ardgour

Anna crossing the river at the end of the day

The moon rises behind Ben Nevis

Following yesterdays excellent ascent of Stob Bans North Ridge, we were determined to continue our mountain based weekend. Making the most of todays stunning weather, we opted to give Castle Ridge a shot. Anna and I have been itching to give this, one of Ben Nevis's famous North Face ridges, a shot for quite some time but the weather just never seemed to do it justice. Today was a different story and we walked up from Torlundy in basking sunshine, sweating like it was midsummer. That all changed, of course, as soon as we were enveloped in shade as we made the final approach to the foot of the ridge proper.

The first third of the ridge consists of easy, broken ground. Whilst covering this terrain we saw the RAF helicopter out around the Douglas Boulder on a call out. I took this opportunity to practice some short roping techniques and look forward to improving these skills over time.

We were soon met by increasingly slimey, slippery rock and at the first real steepening I opted to pitch the climb as the rock was unreliably wet. I found this first pitch to be the only 'scary' part of the climb as it was a bit unexpected, and standing on a hugely moving boulder did not calm my fears! However, we both made it up to more broken ground comfortably enough, and were able to make our way up to the 'crux' without any issues. The crux itself was lovely, clean rock with great hand holds and footholds, and a reasonably new looking cam which is jammed in solid beside the in-situ peg. Easily my favourite part of the whole ridge, it had been the only bit I was slightly apprehensive about. I brought Anna up and then pitched the next section directly up the nose of the ridge ahead. After this we got rid of the rope and scrambled the final sections to find ourselves basked in sunlight at the top of the route. To descend we opted for the scree slope which is no where near as hard as people make it out to be. We then cut straight across to the North Face Path without going up to the CIC Hut, and descended down to the car in darkness. I managed to smash my knee off a protruding boulder in the darkness, and after dancing around cursing for a few minutes, managed to man up and continue the walk down to the car. A great day overall, I would certainly recommend this route to anyone, and hope to attempt it this winter :)

Cheers :)