Update - 6th March 2010
Thanks to everyone for their kind donations. Below is a brief blog from our day on the mountain and some photos from the day.
Our guide informed us the day before that we would be starting the climb from Fort William and picking up the "tourist path" which in his own words had "Nothing technically challenging" and was just a long slog. I am not sure he had anticipated the entire path being 6ft under snow or how exposed we were going to be crossing the red burn at the half way stage.
Will and I set about our journey up Ben Nevis under no illusion that we could have perhaps put some additional training in beforehand, and indeed I think our guide though we were a little bit nuts, novice hill walkers trying to climb Ben Nevis while its under 6ft of snow is a wee bit ludicrous.It was an eventful journey up, Ben Nevis had been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the build up to our climb with a couple of climbers being swept to their deaths and another taking a real beating in two separate avalanche incidents.
It didn't take long to see the effects of some small avalanches, at around 200m we saw the remains of a mini avalanche and surrounding debris, trees ripped out of the ground and even an unfortunate sheep that had been caught up in it.The deep snow was making walking problematic even at an early stage and there was little sign of the "tourist path", a nasty fall for Will at around 350m up slowed down progress but like a true trooper Will soldiered on despite an injured calf.
At around 600m as we approached the half way point and the crossing of Red Burn we stumbled upon the settled debris of a huge avalanche, apparently you can tell when there is an avalanche coming as it sounds like a fighter jet, queue a noise which sounded like a fighter jet which actually was a fighter jet flying about a 100m below our current position, after a quick change of avalanche threatened pants we were on the move again!As we approached the half way point and crossing of the red burn nothing could have prepped us for how we were going to have to cross. With a near vertical drop down the burn a realistic prospect we inched ourselves across the recently burrowed out 12 inch ledge around the burn to the other side with just the aid of our trusty ice axe. We changed pants again at this stage and then spent the next 20 minutes in a cold sweat after realising we would have to negotiate that route again on the way down.
The remaining climb from here on in was a real slog and mentally the hardest part of the climb, a lot of effort seemed to give us very little height gain and getting from 700m to 1000m seemed to take an age and we lost a lot of time covering this ground as Will struggled on with his injury and I hit the "Wall" AGAIN!At just shy of 6 hours (about 2 hours behind schedule) we finally reached the summit and collapsed in near exhaustion and pain! The prospect of having to do it all again but downhill was not very appealing at this stage.
We picked ourselves back up and headed down taking a different steeper route down from the top to allow us to catch up on some lost time, however the steepness of this route was making it difficult for Will and his injured calf to keep up (difficult to repeatedly pull your entire leg out of thigh high soft snow every other step!!!) , after deliberating whether it was a good idea to allow Will to slide down towards the half way point on his bum using his axe as a brake, our guide eventually saw sense and we joined back up with the less steep zig zig paths back to the now dreaded red burn.Climbing back across Red burn was not as bad as originally feared as we now had crampons on to give us some extra support on the thin path. There was only one real challenging downwards climb left and indeed we all had to climb down this part backwards we approached 500m coming down. Once this was safely overcome the final 400 m descent was relatively easy all things considered, just time consuming, at 6pm, after 10 hours of walking we were safely back at sea level, limping, sweating and generally blowing out of our arses!
Job Done! Geeks 1 vs Ben Nevis 0!!!
Background - Who?/Where?/What?
In November 1999, Mountain Software employed two "fresh faced" 19 year old ex-students (1 who couldn't be arsed to go to uni and another who couldn't be arsed to finish uni and dropped out) to their expanding development team.
Fast forward 10 years via a few job changes and company buyouts and myself (Rich Mephan) and my partner in crime for the last 10 years (Will Lait) are sat about figuring out how to spend the generous 10 Year Service Award (Red Letter Day Voucher) given to us by IRIS (who bought CSGroup who bought Mountain Software - See above about buyouts).
Quite how we arrived at a decision to spend a day Mountain Climbing on Ben Nevis or Glencoe I do not know, but there is no going back now, 4th March 2010 is D-Day. If you're going to climb/walk/crawl up a mountain then there can be no better opportunity than using it as a reason to raise money for charity, especially when no one thinks your will actually make it to the top.
Reasoning - The why!
My charity of choice is Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer seems to have been a major part of my life for the previous 5 or so years. In early 2004 my eldest sister Nicola was diagnosed with breast cancer and 3 years later in March 2007 Nic lost her battle to this dreadful disease, despite twice being given the all clear. Missed dreadfully by all of her family & friends, as well as her work colleagues from her days at Mountain Software.
Breakthrough Breast cancer was Nic's charity of choice during that tragic 3 year battle and with my mum being diagnosed in September this year with breast cancer and currently undergoing treatment, Breakthrough Breast Cancer seems the ideal choice of charity.
Remember, Will & I are not serious hill walkers, hell, in fact we are not even seriously into exercise, so this represents a "bit" of a challenge for us, and any money we can make for a worthwhile cause on the way is great.
The clever bit
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
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