The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 14

  We tied a couple of 200-foot ropes to the stretcher and started down. These were well V’d out to give maximum control and also to prevent stones or lumps of ice hitting stretcher and patient. It was only when we had descended a hundred feet or so that I realised how lucky Kenneth Dunn was, for had he not met his boulder on that rocky island he would have continued several hundred feet and would surely have perished on the rocks.

  I was getting worried about these rocks – and the ice.

  “What do you think, Ian? It’s a bit dodgy for those without crampons.”

  The lads were kicking their heels into the icy surface with very little effect.

  “They’d better go down one of the scree strips,” Ian Clough replied, shining his headlamp to the right.

  “I think so too,” I responded and I shouted instructions accordingly.

  The powerful beam of Alec’s searchlight picked out the steep verglas-coated rocks. Though not inviting, at least one couldn’t fall far in the event of a slip. About eight of the team made their way to this frozen gangway. Those of us with crampons took up the stretcher “reins” and continued down.

  We had been going for some ten minutes when I heard a shout and the searchlight beam spun across the dark curtain above before hurtling down the slope, with Alec Morrison still attached. Alec was the only one remaining with the stretcher party who hadn’t crampons. As he was operating the searchlight he didn’t want to abandon us and leave us short handed. It was a strange sight to see Alec, followed six feet behind (the length of the flex) by the lamp. The battery was still in the rucksack on his back. He did several cartwheels, eventually coming to a halt 300 feet below, when he hit frozen scree resembling a carrot grater.

  In our concern for a fellow rescuer we almost forgot Kenneth and his stretcher, which was also eager to be off. I had to yell to the team to hold it or we’d also lose our patient.

  Three of us quickly cramponed down to where Alec lay. We were relieved to find that he wasn’t badly hurt, mainly abrasions, but he had injured his back. While we attended his wounds, the stretcher was lowered down to us.

  Below I saw a host of lights.

  “That must be the Oban Police team,” I said to Ian Clough. I spoke to them on the radio, asking if they had another stretcher. They had, and as it was being carried by Ian McCrae, the gamekeeper and special constable who lives just a mile or so from Achallader farm, I knew it would be with us pretty quick.

  Though initially Alec insisted on painfully hobbling down, he soon succumbed to the indignity of being carried when Ian and the stretcher arrived. We brought both men down to the farm. The lower slopes of the mountain, which we had avoided coming up on our rising traverse, proved to be like an angled skating rink, sheathed in wide expanses of ice, and made slicker by a thaw which had by now set in. Both casualties were taken by ambulance to the local doctor at Dalmally and then to Oban hospital.

  I have always found it a point of interest when thinking of this rescue that Kenneth Dunn was found very close to the location of the 1925 accident. That early rescue occurred at a time when there were no official rescue facilities in the Scottish Highlands, and psychic assistance was volunteered in the form of “magic writing”, which may or may not have given clues to where the missing climber lay.

  I have been interested in the mystery of the Beinn Achaladair letters for over twenty years. Every time I go on a rescue in that area my thoughts take me back and I am forced to believe that there are some happenings on earth which, at the present time, have no logical explanation. I knew several of the people who took part in the search and have spoken with them at length about this strange affair.

  To begin, we go back in time to 1925. It was a cold Sunday morning on 22 March. The time, 5.30 am when Douglas Ewen, Archibald MacLay Thomson and Alexander Lawson Henderson left Inveroran Inn, an old droving stance, to walk to Beinn Achaladair.

  The high tops were still in winter condition and there was a crisp clear frost but none of the party had knowledge of snow and ice climbing. Thirty-year-old Alex Henderson was the most experienced of the group, having made some ascents on the continent.

  In 1925 the A82 highway across the Moor of Rannoch, which links Fort William and the West with Glasgow, had still to be built. They took the old road as far as Loch Tulla, then followed the loch edge and crossed the Water of Tulla at a ford opposite Achallader farm.

  The north-west face of the mountain rose above them as they crossed the railway line. It was 7.30 am.

  To a mountaineer this aspect of Beinn Achaladair presents no great difficulty, being an almost uniformly angled slope to its summit. The three men chose to ascend a wide snow gully in the centre of the face.

  They had been warned that conditions on the mountain could be icy and even lower down on the slopes they had to kick steps. From below, the long treadmill of this slope is foreshortened.

  It was 9.30 am before they stopped for breakfast at 2,000 feet. Already they were finding the going difficult and, with little thought of the possible consequences, they took an hour over their meal. Alex Henderson, who felt cold, kept stomping about and impatiently got off ten minutes ahead of his companions.

  As Douglas and Archie climbed they could see Alex ahead, but at about 11.15 am he slanted leftwards and they lost sight of him behind some ice-coated rocks. But by now they had other problems to occupy their minds. They were experiencing difficulty with hard snow and higher up they found themselves on iced rock. They were so gripped by their predicament that they resolved not to descend by this route.

  It was 1.25 pm when they emerged on the summit of the mountain. No sign of Alex. At first they were puzzled, then alarmed, and for two hours searched the final slopes, even using a hand siren in the hope of attracting his attention. Archibald Thomson also lowered himself on their climbing rope over a cornice to a ridge below. This was the continuation of Alex’s line of ascent. There was no sign, nothing – just a vast angled whiteness interspersed with ice-coated rock.

  The two men were baffled by the disappearance of their friend and decided to head for the col between Achaladair and the adjoining peak, Meall Buidhe. They had difficulty climbing to this and had to resort to step cutting on the icy slope. But nowhere could they find any tracks suggesting their friend had come this way. They returned to Achaladair summit at 6.00 pm and after ten minutes’ deliberation decided to descend to Achallader farm to raise the alarm.

  By the time they got down to the north-east corrie it was dusk, but they made a hurried search at the foot of the steep slopes and satisfied themselves that the only marks on the snow had been caused by falling rocks. There were no prints in the floor of the valley, but in the failing light they were not sure if the broken slopes at the head of the big central gully contained tracks or not.

  At 7.07 pm the light failed and they abandoned the search and continued to Achallader farm.

  It was 8.40 pm by the time they got down to this place of refuge, and they were fed by Duncan Smith, the father of my late friend, and his wife. The two tired men were asked to spend the night, but they felt that there was a possibility that Alex had somehow crossed over the summit and had perhaps descended to the east towards Tyndrum.

  They left Achallader at 10.35 pm and walked the ten miles to the Tyndrum Hotel. It was now 3.45 am on the Monday morning. There was no sign of Alex. Both men were shattered, having traversed forty-four miles in just over twenty-two hours, some of that up and down the steep slopes of Beinn Achaladair.

  Robert Stewart was the hotel owner at the time and he organised a search party which set off by mid-morning. In those days the arrangement for rescues was to recruit shepherds, gillies and casual climbers locally, and alert the Scottish Mountaineering Club, who would sally forth with all expediency from Glasgow or Edinburgh or indeed from both cities.

  Robert Stewart had sent the club a telegram that morning but it was Wednesday evening before it was found in the Scottish Mountaineering Clubrooms in Glasgow. It had been accepte
d on the Monday by the charwoman who hadn’t thought it was necessary to inform the club secretary! That evening the club’s topic was a paper on the installation of a mountain indicator on the summit of Lochnager. The account of this operation by the Cairngorm Club was read by the Honorary President, J. A. Parker. The situation was reminiscent of Drake’s game of bowls with the Spanish Armada looming over the horizon. The audience knew of the urgent plea for help at the start of the meeting and as soon as the paper was concluded the president put the matter to the members. It was resolved that a party should set out for Tyndrum immediately. With this rescue party was Alexander Harrison, a future Honorary President. Despite the telegram which went astray, several Scottish Mountaineering Club members in the area were already helping the search. These were J. H. Bell, A. J. Rusk and E. C. Thomson, names renowned in Scottish mountaineering circles. Frank Smythe, the well-known mountaineer and writer who had been climbing with Dr Bell, had to return south and couldn’t take part.

  Throughout the Thursday a fifteen-mile radius round the mountain was combed, but without success. The weather had deteriorated with driving rain below and snow above. While police, gillies and other volunteers scoured the lower slopes, the SMC members concentrated their efforts on the more precipitous parts of the mountain, where they thought it more likely that Henderson had come to grief. They concluded that he could have reached the summit at least half an hour ahead of his two companions. It was just possible that they had missed his prints, or that he had kept to harder snow, where his tracks had not stood out, especially in the fading light. With this in mind they felt that the missing man could be anywhere in a wide area, even in Glen Lyon.

  On the Monday, eight days after Henderson’s disappearance, a set of old prints had been found lower down by some of the local searchers, but these had run out in treacherous ground where the rescuers themselves were exposed to considerable danger.

  That day, when the rescuers were on the hill, a strange letter arrived in the post at the hotel. It was addressed to Mr Garret. The hotelier, Robert Stewart, decided it must be meant for a Mr Garrick, who was an experienced Glasgow-based mountaineer in charge of one of the search groups. The letter ran thus:

  Dear Sir,

  This is going to be a difficult letter to write, and beyond making use of the information it may give, I would ask you to be so good as to keep it to yourself as far as possible. A friend and myself have, within the last three months, received startling proof of the accuracy of the information regarding unknown people, which we have received from a supernatural agency. I cannot go into details of these now – it would serve no purpose . . .

  Yesterday (Tuesday, 24th) it occurred to us that we might be able to get useful information as to the whereabouts of the lost Mr Henderson and at 12.00 noon we approached the usual source of our information, and requested that a “scout” be sent out to get any information possible. In the evening about 6.30 pm we asked for news and the undernoted is verbatim:

  The answer is slow in coming, but our messenger now reports that it is raining, and one, I think his name is Cameron, is heading towards the col, where the man is lying. The snow is deep here perhaps twenty feet and it may be that Cameron is not sure of his feet and we cannot influence him sufficiently; it may be I say three, some six weeks ere he be found. Jim says he is warm yet . . .

  Some time later: Where may he be found? Can no directions be given?

  Such information as I have is scant, but news is that he is warm, and we are not led to think that he is asleep.

  What do you say of Death?

  There is no Death.

  Where is he?

  He has not yet passed, but his needs are worldly. It is a col. Ask one, I think his name is Cameron, where he was at 4 o’clock today. They are still searching, and we are trying to help!

  Now we do not know a single member of the search party, but should there amongst them be one of the name of Cameron, that would be one point correct, indicating an intelligence of some kind behind our information. I would say that in all probability the whole information as to location of the spot for which you are searching is correct, and that the information should not be treated lightly. Neither my friend or myself are spiritualists, but interested in investigating phenomena we do not pretend to understand. In view of the nature of the information we feel conscience-bound to pass it on – it can do no harm and may be useful.

  The only signature was “Anxious to Help”.

  Though most of the club members were sceptical about the weird letter, there indeed was a Mr Cameron in the search party and he had been on the col at 4.00 pm on the 24th. Also, it had been raining (a not uncommon phenomenon in this part of the world). It is understandable, however, that the letter wasn’t treated very seriously by those hard-bitten mountaineers.

  The search continued and a large-scale operation was planned for the weekend as the weather seemed to be improving. Some thirty quarry workers were taking part, travelling from nearby Ballachulish slate quarries by bus. John Kennedy was one of these. Gillies, police and shepherds all turned out in force; the shepherds with their dogs hoped that the collies could locate Henderson if he should be buried under the snow. Some thirty years later I was also to use my dog to find a buried avalanche victim only a short distance away in Glencoe, but was soon to realise that dogs have to be specifically trained for this work, especially for locating bodies. As a direct result, I later started the Search and Rescue Dog Association.

  The climbers in the 1925 operation felt that there was little hope of finding Henderson until a thaw, for on the 25th eighteen inches of snow fell, which they rightly concluded must have effectively covered the body, unless he was lying on a windswept slope.

  The weekend search was to no avail, although many pinned hope on the dogs. By now considerable public interest had been aroused and on Sunday 29 March an aeroplane from Renfrew airport circled low over the mountain, where over seventy men could be seen sweeping the slopes and corries, but they saw no sign of Henderson. In fact it later transpired that several of the search party had passed close to the fallen climber, but hadn’t spotted him due to the snow cover.

  Meanwhile, Anxious to Help had become a diligent correspondent. Another undated letter arrived for “Mr Garret”, offering the following information from the supernatural:

  My news is but little, for the “scout” is not yet returned. You ask me many questions, and these I will attempt to answer. The loch mentioned is not so much a loch as a widening in the Water of Tulla, and some miles form the Loch Tulla at Achallader House, and the ruins of the old castle of the same name. This is Ford.

  We did not know of a place named Ford’s whereabouts, and had asked for particulars.

  From here, if they follow the valley, some say corrie, to its source, and at altitude 3,060 feet, they will get as near as I can tell you at present. Today many have passed fairly near, but only a few are out, and there is no sign of a thaw.

  We asked for a sketch of the place, but were informed that the “scout” was with the searcher, one McLaren. You will know if such a person was out, and accept it, if so, as further proof of a direct intelligence.

  Still Anxious to Help

  Captain McLaren was a well-known climber and actively engaged in the search operation, and curiously it was he who opened this second letter addressed to Mr Garret. Hard upon it, another letter arrived, dated 2 April, and addressed this time to Mr Stewart, the hotelkeeper, at Tyndrum:

  Further to my letter of Yesterday addressed to “Mr Garret”, the following, together with the rough sketch, is sent from our source of information and for what they may be worth. Neither any friend or myself is acquainted with the locality, and do not know from which side of the paper the sketch is to be read; but to those on the spot it should be evident if the sketch corresponds to the definite places named on it – we got two separate sketches drawn and they seem to be similar. They are reputed to have been drawn for us by the “scout” sent to the spot, a
nd the following is his information asked by us for further directions:

  Leave Loch Tulla and go along the road until you come to Ford, which lies between the castle and the big house, and go up the corrie. You go east and climb up the corrie on your right hand.

  Asked if nothing could be done, we were told that the only hope was a thaw – for recovery of the body.

  My friend and myself would give our names but in view of the publicity the accident has occasioned we prefer not to do so. My friend knows you personally, Mr Stewart, and I am therefore addressing this to you as likely to be able to make use of the information should it be worth anything.

  Anxious to Help

  The “spiritual” sketch showed Loch Tulla, Achallader farm and the castle, but the ford is marked in the wrong spot.

  The next letter was dated 3 April.

  Further to my letter of yesterday the following information, since received, is sent for what it is worth.

  There is little to report; we have found a definite aid to the climbers. It is in the shape of a tin box and many . . . (interrupted)

  Has our letter to Garret been received and opened?

  Yes, it has been opened by one of the name Mak Lairen, but to the box, some say tin, well, this they will find not one hundred yards from the spot.

  But we cannot say will any of the climbers associate the box, some say tin, with the man you mention.

  Can the tin be seen?

  The tin is quite visible, though snow is falling.

  Where exactly is it?

  It is near the corrie Achallader, and if they are quick they will find it. A strange message reaches me, and this I will repeat on verification.