Valentines Day 09

So I took a romantic (this is a mostly sarcastic statement) trip with the mountaineering club for Valentines day weekend. One of the girls drove us in a mini bus up the skinny mountain road for the greater part of the three hour drive. I was very impressed that she knew how to drive a manual and that we did not die or suffer any traumatic road experiences. We arrived at Roy Bridge Inn, a pleasantly quaint three story hostel located just outside of Fort William. We spent Friday night there then packed up and left for separate expeditions. I went with three other guys to conquer the backside of Ben Nevis (two other guys went rock climbing and everyone else went halfway up the tourist trail that leads to the top of Ben Nevis). Ben Nevis is the Highest mountain in the entire UK. The climb up actually starts very near sea level making the journey much longer than other mountain peaks. Prior to departure I was issued a Ice Axe/pick, helmet and crampons (awesome spiky things for the feet) that we fitted to our boots Friday night. I made one fantastic mistake a long time ago, that is buying a backpack that can carry way to much. In order to keep it usable(if its not full enough everything hangs around all dilapidated and it doesn't balance on the back well) I filled it with some excess cloths before this day trip. The extra weight in comparison to everyone else just about killed me on the way down.
OK so we headed off on a trail and I lead almost the whole way up into the valley. This made me smile because the trail was snow/ice covered and I'm from South Carolina. We slogged it out way up the valley to this really cool mountain house (the backside of which is pictured...apparently its undergoing renovation) that in order for people to get a bed in, they have to book over a year and a half in advance(some world famous French climber comes here every year for a week or more because the area offers some of the best climbing that can be found anywhere).
From this point we made a short, but painful trek over lots of small loose rocks up to the base of steep cliff face that was covered in several feet of frozen snow. We broke out our ice picks and I got a lesson in how to fall properly. If you ever fall down a steep incline and happen to have a ice pick on you then the proper technique is to bring the butt of the pick into your shoulder(bringing this to your mouth will most likely result in missing teeth), flip onto your stomach falling feet first then dig the ice pick head into the snow very firmly. I was made to practice this by running and sliding on a lesser snow covered incline.
Anyway, we made it about a fourth of the way up the cliff face using ice picks and making huge foot holds in the snow, then the snow got crazy hard and we had to apply crampons to our boots to get grip. I found that taking my boot toe and smashing it into the side of the mountain to make a grip/foothold with the front four spikes was thrilling. I became responsible (instead of the mountain) to make sure I had a footing before moving on, but at the same time I could create a footing just about anywhere I wanted. The safety trick in getting up the incline is smashing your ice pick handle first into the snow then using it as a hand hold and making footholds with your feet. We inched our way up the mountain side this way, it took us about an hour. The top of the mountain side turned out to be a long and very narrow(some places were just over 12inches of path that had sheer drop offs on either side) ridge that led up the side of Ben Nevis. Somewhere on the way up the mountain side we entered a cloud and we never saw anything in the distance more than 50 feet away till we were well on our way down. we hiked along the ridge until it widened and started to angle up steeply again. The wind at this point continued to increase in speed and ferocity and things got bitter cold at least they did if you stayed still for too long. We climbed the steepening ridge until it finally plateaued out. At this point the other guys were pretty much waiting on me to catch up. Then they surprised me and turned out to actually have a lot of skill as they consulted their maps and compasses (we couldn't see more than 20 feet at this point) and we walked barely 20 paces to our left and found the ruins of the observatory (basically the top of the mountain). The observatory(pictured...barely) was built in the Victorian period as an experimental weather watching facility, it is now just a pile of mountain top ruins. We found a survival shelter on top of the mountain and dug the snow out of the doorway to get inside so we could get relief from the weather and eat some lunch (mine consisted of granola bars). The trip down basically stunk for me. Everything from my lower back down hurt, it was really cold, I couldn't keep up with the other guys so they kept stopping and waiting (they didn't seem to mind too much though). They did do an excellent job navigating back to the main tourist path. The problem with crampons is that if you step on rock with them they don't keep level like a boot will. instead one spike will stay on the rock while the rest find the lower ground causing your ankle to bend in all kinds of ways it wasn't meant too. All that complaining though to say that it was totally worth it and I'm so glad I got to do some real winter mountaineering.
There were some absolutely gorgeous views on the way down, that is of course after we got low enough to get out of the cloud. The snow turned to rain and the we barely made it back to the bottom before the sun set (at the bottom I found this sign which I thought was hilarious...especially the "can't see stone = foggy") We spent another night in the Roy Bridge and then I decided that I wanted to catch the Ranger vs Celtics game back here in Glasgow instead of put my legs/feet through another hike (although it would have been a much easier one) so I caught a ride this morning with a few other mountaineering kids in an automatic (the first one I have seen here) Ford Focus. The game was fantastic...except neither team scored and it's not the playoffs yet so they just left it that way 0-0. I've decided to pull for the rangers, I like the team name better and I think Scott and I have tickets thanks to Rob for their game next weekend.

Things I learned recently thanks to this trip (finally hanging with the Scottish)

• The word "pants" does not actually refer to "trousers" , but rather to any and all forms of underwear (with the exception of boxers) I was informed that this also included the frilly ones. For example: When I said "I ripped my pants!" What they heard was "I ripped my underwear" to which the leader of our expedition smiled, shook his head and said "No you mean you ripped your trousers" .
• You do not want to be any place where things are "going pear shaped" This means that a situation is going to get much worse. This might be extra funny to any of my American friends who were on the setup crew during the pear lady episodes.
• The Word "Cheers" is much more popular than the words "thank you"
  
• If something is "Dodgy" you probably don't want to be around to dodge it.
  
• If something is "quality" it is or was very good...one must be careful as this is often used sarcastically as well. (as in "Oh! I've been there, quality restaurant that is!"...then everyone laughs because they know its crap)
  
• They play a card game that in France that is called oncuelet (I hope this is horribly misspelled...do to its vulgarity) it is very similar to our game called(by many names): up and down the lazy river, crap on your neighbor, oh *&%$(poop), but the french have upped the vulgarity of the name probably to the most extreme level possible...don't try to translate it just trust me. (I do want readers to know that I dominated at this game and only lost one hand).
• Half of their music is stuck in the 90's...or 90's sounding. And somehow Beyonce and Dolly Parton(working 9-5...I've heard it twice) followed me over here.