New VII on Ben Nevis - Under Fire

Staring at the roof on Under fire

With a top class forecast we were in a rush to get onto the walk-in to the Ben before 6am and get amongst it. After two frustrating failures so far this winter, I was pretty damn determined to top out on one of these new routes. Repeating other peoples routes is so much easier than climbing new routes.

Very happy to finally be out winter climbing

We headed for Trident Buttress and a chimney line I’d spotted with a large roof in it. The roof had some nice continental style icicles on the lip. I gingerly leaned out and began hitting them to figure out if they would take my weight. Err, no. I did a great job of repeatedly trying to take Michael out with huge ice missiles. A swooping throw of the ice axe saw off the roof, But the following pitch didn’t go so well.

Michael suffers with the Hot Aches

I tried to climb a sketchy overhanging wall and spent two hours getting pumped and scared, only to come down in despair. Must get better at mixed climbing…

Thankfully, an exposed traverse round to the left brought us to an elegant corner line, which I dragged a tired body up, dropping heaps of snow, ice and the odd loose block onto Michael who was once again right in the firing line. At least my worst fear of falling off and landing on him from 30 feet up the corner wasn’t realised!

A nice start to the season

Under Fire VII,7* Dave MacLeod, Michael Tweedley Feb 6th 2008

Start left of The Minge, below a roofed chimney. Climb the chimney with hard moves through the roof and the continuation corner above, to excite left onto a ledge underneath an overhanging wall. Traverse left for 5m and round to the base of a large slanting corner (common to 1944 route). Climb the corner and crawl right along a thin ledge to another corner which leads to the top.