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Climbing Ben Nevis in Winter
The frozen faces of the UK’s highest peak are a playground for winter climbers, as Mike Pescod reveals.
The highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis, is also home to the greatest cliffs, ridges, gullies and faces to be found on these shores.
Although not easy to appreciate from a walk up the mountain path, its North Face is a different world – and one that is regularly explored by winter climbers. At some point, they will all make a pilgrimage to Nevis to test themselves on the mountain’s trickiest flanks, dive into the deep history of the place and experience its immense scale.
In the dying days of March, as the glens began to feel the first warm breath of spring and buttresses and rocks were starting to reappear lower down the mountain, the summit was still in the grip of winter. Bright sunshine and daffodils at sea level gave no hint of the thick snow and ice up above. The ice climbing was at its best. Sally Hudson, Caspar McKeever and I chose this moment to tackle some of Ben Nevis’s classic climbs.
Fawlty Towers – Grade II, 3*
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Glover's Chimney – Grade III, 4***
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The White Line – Grade IV, 3**
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Tower Scoop – Grade III**
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Upper Tower Cascade (Right Hand) – Grade III**
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