Ben Nevis - Centurion and Minus One Direct

Joe and I had been talking about climbing on the Ben in Summer ever since we met each other. Neither of us had ever done a route on the route winter or summer at the start of the year, this changed when I ticked the Curtain and Smiths Route (both of which are covered by their relevant blogposts). This still left the summer classics completely untouched! When confronted with an empty week at the start of a semester (some call it freshers week, I think it's better spent climbing than partying) there didn't seem to be any reason not to head over to the Ben for 2 days to get some routes done. Over the course of the 2 days we managed to tick potentially the two most famous non-ridge summer routes; Centurion (HVS 5a) and Minus One Direct (E1 5b).

Walking into Smiths in March

As with all Ben Nevis adventures, It began with a long drive in the evening to get into the north face car park, where we settled down for a nights sleep in Joe's Portable premier inn.

Day 1: Centurion

Joe and I awoke bright an early to begin the walk in to the Carn Dearg Buttress up the allt a'mhuillin path. The forecast had been for low cloud until late morning at which point the sun would burn it all off, and then it would be glorious until the days close. So the first 3/4 of the walk up was in the cloud until walked up the path to just past castle ridge, I looked up to my right and I could see these golden shapes poking through the clouds above. As we climbed higher these shapes became recognisable as the tops of the mountain from castle ridge to the Carn Dearg buttress.

The gold crested tops of Ben Nevis through the cloud

As only the tops were visible it gave the illusion that the cliffs were much taller and impressive than they in reality are. Soon we'd climbed high enough that we'd burst through the layer of cloud and all around beneath us was a sea of clouds with the tops of the mountains poking their heads out, the most impressive temperature inversion I've ever seen with my own eyes.

The Lochaber Ocean.

We took a quick rest at the CIC hut, and then speeded up to the base of the route. It was here we tossed a coin and Joe got to choose which leads he wanted to do (odds or evens) he obviously went for the evens as that allowed him to lead the famous corner pitch, which is the reason most people climb the route. This meant I got the first lead, the line follows an awkward crack system up to a semi hanging belay, just beneath the unmistakeable corner of the second pitch.

Joe seconding pitch one

It was now Joes turn to lead the iconic corner pitch. He speedily geared up and then set off up. The first few metres of the corner aren't so hard, though unfortunately the rock was suffering a little from seepage and some of the cracks were wet. Thankfully upward progress was definitely possible, Joe began to flow up the corner making the harder sections look easy (barely a "watch me" was heard!). I remember him reaching the end of the corner much sooner than expected because I heard him calling safe! and me being very confused as to how he's got to the top so quick!

Joe cruising up the slightly wet main corner of centurion

Seconding this pitch with the rucksack was admittedly a bit awkward I found it annoyingly got in the way when I wanted to twist into the rock. Despite the difficulties I was soon at the belay and ready to go for my second pitch of the day.

Pitch 3 involves making an airy traverse out of the corner onto the arete, which you scramble up easily until an overlap is reached which you step airily right onto for some really cool exposure. Despite the straightforwardness of this pitch I found it to be really fun.

Another easier pitch followed, this pitch once again traversed out of the corner onto the arete, though on really small hands and feet which made it feel a lot harder than it was.

Joe loving life, having completed the traverse on pitch 4.

The next pitch was once again very easy (I think the easiest of the route) It involved scrambling over blocky ground to a good ledge, though I got a little lost and ended up at the wrong ledge, so Joe seconded to the correct ledge where he made an anchor and then I traversed across to him. At about this point in the day a Helicopter repeatedly flew past us, which I was pretty annoyed by as it really spoiled the ambience of the mountain setting. The next pitch was the second crux. The line ascends up a slab to a up and leftwards slanting slab capped by a big roof. Joe made it up the first slab easily enough, though making it onto the second slab required some delicate footwork, and then once past these difficulties the handholds shrunk down to less than epsilon (#mathsjokes) and were covered in a thin film of moisture. This time there were a few watch me's from Joe as he tackled the challenges on pitch 6.

I wish Joe would get a more colourful jacket...

The bag wasn't as much a hindrance for me whilst seconding this pitch, slab climbing is definitely more my forte than Joe's, though I'd have preferred drier holds. 

The last pitch of the route was upon us! Involving some good run outs and some lovely technical climbing. I think this pitch was a bit of an underdog in terms of quality when compared to the 2nd and 6th pitches, I really enjoyed it! Once the huge ledge splitting the carn dearg buttress was reached we stopped briefly for some grub, before collecting everything up and then descending down ledge route to the CIC hut.

Carn Dearg buttress, puffing out its chest in the morning sun

We'd decided to walk all the way down to the car park and walk into the Ben two days in a row. The alternatives involved a lot of logistical hassle, and I feel there's something really nice about walking back down the allt a'mhuillin at the end of a good days climbing. We'd taken centurion pretty leisurely as we had enough daylight to allow us to do so and I'd found the whole experience rather relaxing in the wonderful sunshine above the sea-like temperature inversion below us. Centurion Is a great route, though I'm unsure if it lives up to its hype, which roughly equates to telling a pixar fan Up was a bad film (though I didn't enjoy Up either!). I think if I'd led pitches 2 and 6 it would be a different story, so I'll have to go back some day and lead the even pitches!

Day 2: Minus One Direct

Centurion was the route Joe wanted to do on the Ben, and Minus One Direct was the Route I most wanted to do on the Ben. This huge route Is the longest climb I've ever done, taking a pretty straight line up the humongous right flank of north east buttress. Not Including the ridges, It's probably getting on for the 2nd longest route on the mountain (after the aptly named long climb). Besides it's large stature the route has a pretty haughty and intimidating reputation to go along with it. Famed for the difficulty of the route finding and the notorious "death blocks", particularly the one poised directly above the belayer on pitch 3. I've heard stories from friends of people camping in the bergschrund at its base for a swift start, and of people taking 12+ hours on it and topping out well into darkness. Here's some quotes from the UKC logbooks to illustrate my point;

"some great climbing on mostly good rock except pitch 3 where a horror block is poised for an      extinction level event!"

" They aren't joking about that block on pitch 3! Pitch 4 is very serious but steady. After pitch 4        the route finding became difficult and we ended up lost after 6 pitches with it getting dark. 3            pitches left took us to NEB. Lots of loose rock, moss filled cracks and less than inspiring gear      marred this classic for me. If someone would like to show me where the route goes after pitch 4    then that would be great!"

The scale and severity of the route coupled with its notoriety lead us to take the climb pretty seriously (which I must say payed off). We woke up at half 5 and blasted back up the allt a'mhuillin track through the clouds. Once again we had an awesome temperature inversion, maybe even more impressive than the day before!

Charging up the allt a'mhuilin

The iconic outline of North East Buttress, it really signifies Ben Nevis for me

We made our way up to the base of observatory ridge so that from there we had a good view of the minus face and we could scope out the line of minus one direct. After a small discussion we worked out where was the correct place to start from and made our way over there. As the route was so long we wanted to make good time on the face and we opted to solo the first pitch in our climbing shoes as it was just a blocky scramble. As Joe had been allowed to select which pitches he wanted to do on Centurion in the spirit of fairness it was now my choice to select which pitches I wanted on Minus One Direct. I opted to lead both crux pitches, we made these to be even pitches by Joe linking pitches 5 and 6 into each other. The linking of these two also saved us valuable time on the route.

The View from my perch atop pitch 2, not bad.

This being decided, meant I got the first lead and I began by heading up a short sharp corner system to belay directly beneath the "death block". We then swapped leads and Joe climbed wet cracks around the "death block" (which as it transpired is nowhere near as dangerous as everyone makes it out to be) after which he trended leftwards to make a belay down and left from a jutting nose of rock.

The ropes trailing up pitch 3

The next pitch was the first crux, I climbed up for a few metres placing a good cam in some questionable rock. The next move required me to step out into the void onto a jutting nose of rock. Due to my sub-par gear I dithered a little before making the move, but soon I found myself stepping right onto the nose, pulling on fantastic sidepulls; a much easier move than appearances would suggest. I trended tentatively up and right in the search of gear, developing quite the run out. It seemed there was a trade off on the route. The rock was immaculate and very compact but as a result it didn't form many cracks or imperfections to slot protection into. I reached a good ledge and chilled there for a bit whilst I tried to find more pro. The next move was the crux of the pitch and there was a perfect slot which would've gobbled up a nice cam had some nonce not managed to wedge a prehistoric wire in it. In the end I improvised by slotting a wire in behind the wedged wire making a pretty solid, if slightly artificial gear placement. 

Having found the necessary confidence boosting gear I made the "crux" move. It required you to step up and right awkwardly round a blunt arete into a groove. The guidebook gives the move 5b, I'm sure it's more like 4c. I was elated to discover how easy it was! This proved to be a great confidence booster on the climb, making me more confident for the second (and harder) crux further above. The pitch finished nicely, continuing up the groove and then trending rightwards along a ramp on immaculate rock. This lead to a small sentry box on the extreme right of the minus face looking down into minus one gully.

Joe seconding pitch 4

Now it was Joe's turn to lead once again, The following pitch was to be 5a, though 5b felt more fair. Our plan was to link the next two pitches together to allow for more speedy progress and so that I could lead the second crux. Joe climbed up and right to follow a thin flake crack to its top where a series of awkward and surprisingly difficult moves lead to a standing position in a triangular niche, Joe made good use of his knees and his iconic "watch me" was heard more than once. After getting to the top of pitch 5, he disappeared out of sight for the entirety of pitch 6. Before too long he'd made it to the belay where he'd strung together a multitude of crappy gear to make a less dubious belay.

Joe just beneath the crux on the pitch 5/6 link up.

Next was the famed traverse pitch. From the belay, thin and technical moves across a jutting prow of rock with absolutely no gear lead to a notch in the slab in which a standing position can be gained. Then you continue to make upward progress until a break under a thin roof is reached and (finally) gear can be placed. The boldness and situation of this pitch are completely unrivalled by anything I've ever done, There is absolutely zero gear for the first 5 or so metres from the belay and the bit of rock you climb on juts out into the void and you have nothing but 200 metres of air nibbling at your heels beneath you. Never before have I seriously got my smallest micro-wire out in a desperate attempt to try and place something. Once the roof is attained, thankfully gear is readily available for the rest of the pitch.

The wild crux traverse of minus one direct. Credit: http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=156567

From the break beneath the roof I traversed right until I reached the "arete" at which point the guidebook informed me I should start heading up, though I discovered there were actually 3 arete's and I couldn't seem to work out which one I was supposed to take. The first two I noticed both looked absolutely nails. I tried to tackle the first few metres but soon upward progress was blocked by 6a/b moves which didn't seem right. After much dithering I spotted a third and less obvious arete and took it for lack of better options. This transpired to be the right way as it suddenly lead me to one of the coolest belay ledges I've ever been on. the belay was small square notch cut into the arete on the left side of the buttress; very exposed, and surprisingly comfortable!

Having tackled this pitch all of the difficulties were over! From here to the top was a succession of pitches up gloriously compact rock up to north east buttress. Finishing up a really cool knife edge ridge, for some fantastic exposure on such an easy pitch!

Moving on up!

From the start of the day I'd needed a poop, having managed to hold it in all day, I was now greeted with the sweet release of an empty bowel on North East (Butt)ress, The perfect way to end the perfect route. From here we ate some grub before making our way down North East buttress managing to do it with only one abseil. We'd decided not to top out as we'd left a bag at the routes base, thus going to the top of the ben and then back around to the minus face would add maybe another 2/3 hours to the day. 

The minus face of Ben Nevis

At the top of pitch 4 whilst building the belay I'd rubbed my harness against the rock and completely unnoticed it had opened the gate of Joe's gold camalot and it had tumbled to the bottom of the cliff, I did some quick reconnaissance at the bottom of the route at the end of the day to see if I could find it, though it was not to be; we lost a good friend that day. 

After descending to the CIC, for some unknown reason we started running back down the allt a'mhuilin path to the car. Originally It was only supposed to be until we'd overtaken the guys ahead of us, but then we got a bit carried away and just ran the whole flipping way back down for no reason other than neither of us wanted to give into tiredness before the other. The lengths we go to to preserve our dignity!

The minus face catching the first rays of sun at about 6/7pm

Overall Minus One Direct is maybe the best climb I've ever done (I can't make up my mind whether it's better than Jack the Ripper or not!). From pitch 3 onwards every single pitch is just sublime with personal highlights being the two cruxes (the groove and the traverse) and the exposed arete leading to north east buttress. The rock is perfect, the gear spaced enough to make it exciting and the moves technical enough to make it perpetually interesting. 

The sun setting behind Fort Bill

Thankfully the climb didn't live up to certain aspects of its reputation. The route finding wasn't that hard, the death blocks weren't that dangerous and generally I felt it was soft for 5b. Instead of the route taking us 12 hours to do, we did it in 7 and a half. Though what it did live up to was an absolutely bloody brilliant route in an awesome location. I cannot recommend the climb highly enough!!