The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 23

  By the time they had dug him out of his icy tomb the light from their torches was reduced to a dull glow. They realised that they would have difficulty even getting back to the Land Rover, for the weather was deteriorating and it was really dark now. There was no hope of finding anyone else that night. There was no sign of the other two buried men in the area where Murray had thought they might be, nor was there any answer to the rescue party’s frequent calls. The only thing they could do was to return at first light and conduct a more thorough search.

  It was 3.00 am before they got back to the Land Rover. On the way they met Dr Irvin, the local doctor, and told him they had only found the one man. The doctor confirmed that McLeod was dead.

  Next morning the Land Rover crawled once more to a point just beyond the wood. Ahead they could see the elephantine bulk of Beinn a’Bhuird encased in a dazzling mantle of snow. The scar of the avalanche was visible but looked small and insignificant on the massive south flank of the South Top. From this summit a broad, easy ridge eases down in a southerly direction, forming a blunt nose known as Bruach Mor; the avalanche gully is to the south-west of this and in summer holds a stream, the Alltan na Beinne, a tributary of the Quoich Water which in turn flows into the Dee between Mar Lodge and Braemar.

  That morning they had gathered a few extra helpers, including at least one member of the Steele Combo Ecosse Band who were playing at Mar Lodge at the time. The noise of the Land Rover’s engine broke the still of the lonely glen; when it was cut there was a momentary hush. Suddenly, a man shouted:

  “I can hear someone calling!”

  There was no doubt about it. From somewhere up in the direction of the avalanche tip there was a cry: “Help . . . Help . . .” It seemed so incredible that they could hardly believe their ears – they were absolutely positive that there had been no shouts the previous night for the wind had been too light then to drown such vigorous cries.

  Grabbing their rescue equipment they proceeded up the slope as fast as possible. They passed the shallow and empty grave from which McLeod’s body had been exhumed. The shouts were coming from the brink of a small, iced-up waterfall, somewhat higher up than Murray had indicated. Hastily, they went round the side of this and saw above them, in the debris, a hand sticking out of the snow and moving – it was whiter than the snow.

  “All right, lad, we’ve found you. We’ll soon have you out,” shouted Jock Farquharson.

  Though still breathless from the dash up the slope, they quickly dug round the buried man, careful not to injure him with the shovels. It proved to be a difficult task, since both his feet and the lower part of his body were encased in ice. When a wet-snow avalanche is subjected to pressure, as it often is in its rush through narrow parts of a gully, it rapidly freezes once it stops and pressure is released. This is what had occurred in Robert Burnett’s case. It had also become colder overnight and so any melt water which was about – probably the snow round his body melted by body heat – refroze and encased his exposed skin, for his shirt, pullover and anorak had been pulled up by the force of the avalanche. The ice adhered to his body as if it had been bonded with a powerful adhesive and when it was removed his flesh resembled a pin-cushion as a myriad of needlepoints oozed blood. Even using a pen-knife they had difficulty in removing the ice and large areas of skin simply peeled off. His hands were in a similar state for he had been frantically digging for hours; he was badly frostbitten.

  It was then 12.30 pm. He had been buried for twenty-two hours – the longest avalanche burial survival recorded in Britain. The previous night, when the rescue team was searching, he must have been unconscious and this fact probably played a considerable part in saving his life, for someone unconscious uses less oxygen and isn’t subjected to the same degree of shock as a fully conscious person. Burnett was put on a stretcher and taken down to the Land Rover; an ambulance picked him up at Mar Lodge and took him to Aberdeen hospital.

  Meanwhile, the search continued for the one remaining man, Alex McKenzie. The rescue party again employed the bamboo poles to probe the avalanche tip. At 2.30 pm, as they were growing despondent at the prospect of failure, Jim Fraser finally located him; he was about three or four feet below the surface. He lay face down with the snow packed tightly about him. They knew before they dug him out that he was dead.

  Later, when Burnett was interviewed in hospital in Aberdeen by Sergeant Massie of Bucksburn, he criticised the rescue team for abandoning the initial search despite the fact that their torches were dead. Even with later knowledge of avalanche search and rescue, I feel that the small volunteer party from Braemar made the only possible decision. Jim Fraser, later a member of the Search and Rescue Dog Association, thinks that if he had had an avalanche dog that night, Burnett would have been located with the minimum of delay, and he’s probably right.

  Burnett, I gather, took up pot-holing after his accident – the confines of a narrow pot-hole shouldn’t hold any terror for him after his burial under the snows of Beinn a’Bhuird.

  The Wellington and the Storm

  Hamish MacInnes, Dick Brown, Stan Stewart

  To the north of the Rannoch Moor and south of Loch Laggan, in the wilds of the windswept no-man’s-land of Ben Alder lies Loch Ossian; a loch which takes its name from the most famous of Celtic bards. It is desolate country by any standards, especially in winter, where for months it can retreat under a blanket of snow. In olden times it was the hunting ground of Scottish kings, who had their base on an island on Loch Laggan, now, alas, submerged beneath industrial waters, for the loch is a hydro-electric reservoir today. Much of the lower ground round Loch Ossian is also submerged under a green sea of unimaginative coniferous uniformity: Forestry Commission planting.

  Desolation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. To a few discerning people the land round Ben Alder is a sanctuary in the bosom of Scotland. Only the thread of the West Highland line to the west intrudes on this haunt of the red deer, the golden eagle and the fox.

  It was in December 1942 that a Wellington bomber number L7867 of B Flight, RAF Lossiemouth, took off on a cross-country day training flight. The weather was cold and blustery at Loch Laggan and on the peaks sleat hissed down. Visibility was bad. The pilot took the plane down through cloud to below 5,000 feet, thereby disobeying specific instructions. About 1500 hours it crashed into the summit of Geal Charn, 3,714 feet, just north of Ben Alder.

  Duncan Robertson was then head-keeper of Corrour Lodge which snuggles amid trees at the north-eastern end of Loch Ossian. That evening the kitchen door burst open and a man dressed in a flying suit staggered in. Quite coherently, he asked the startled housekeeper if he could take his harness off. He was Sgt. P. E. Underwood, RAF, the tail gunner of the Wellington. After establishing that his five fellow crew members were all killed, he had struggled down from the summit to the Lodge unaided.

  Nine years later, again in the month of December, a survivor loomed out of one of the worst storms for many years, into the shelter of that snug kitchen, to announce that four men lay dead up towards the pass to Ben Alder.

  The friends one makes in youth often have a lasting influence, especially climbing companions. There’s an impetuous tendency to stick out your neck, mostly through lack of knowledge; nevertheless, upon this foundation experience is built, as well as mountaineering common sense. The obvious isn’t always so apparent when you don’t have anyone to show you the ropes! When I started climbing there were no climbing schools, either outward- or upward-bounding. The modern inmate of such establishments is crammed with instant knowledge and in such academic circles the snow hole is regarded with the sanctity of a church, and map and compass the bible and staff of the wayfarer.

  When John Black, John Bradburn, Sid Tunion and I lifted our eyes to the hills it was with an abundance of enthusiasm and a distinct lack of equipment: an old hemp rope, clinker-nailed boots and, if we were lucky, a karabiner and sling between us. We had to make do with the minimum of gear, yet I feel that our shoestring educ
ation had a lot of compensations. It taught us to be self-sufficient and self-reliant, principles much lacking today. Now we have occasionally to go to the assistance of a party on a mountain that may only be “fatigued” and require an escort (often an ill-tempered one) back to the road.

  Tragedy overtook those early climbing friends of mine one cold December in 1951. The events which befell this party and also included Sid’s wife, Ann Tunion, had nothing to do with lack of equipment or lack of knowledge, for by then they were all experienced mountaineers with several years on the Scottish and Alpine peaks behind them. It was a type of accident which still happens today. The adversary is not mountain or avalanche, but the weather and that most insidious killer of the unwary, exposure.

  I first met John Black, John Bradburn and Sid on the Cobbler, a small, savage, terrier-like peak which stands boldly above Arrochar at the head of Loch Long, some thirty miles from Glasgow. For generations it has been a kindergarten for budding rock tigers from the city. Its mica schist grudgingly offers the smallest wrinkles as a substitute for holds and when wet, which it often is, it makes the crags as slippery as oiled leather.

  John Black was a lean-faced, serious man with deft movement who had the analytical mind of an engineer. John Bradburn was also in the engineering business, being a draughtsman: quiet spoken, always well dressed and giving the air of one contented with life. Sid was from tough stock. As a lad with his brother Sandy, he thought nothing of walking into the depths of the Cairngorms from Aberdeen where he was brought up. Aberdonians are hard men on the hills and Sid was no exception. All, including Sid’s wife Ann, were honorary office bearers of the Glencoe Mountaineering Club, based in Glasgow. Though I was never a member, I used their bus at weekends and climbed with them. We taught ourselves the vagaries of the sport and rejoiced in the freedom of the hills. Another young climber who sometimes joined us was Jimmy Grieve. Those were carefree days and on a Saturday we used to rendezvous at Glasgow’s St Enoch’s Square and take the bus to Glencoe or some other far-flung highland destination. We even went to the Alps in the bus on one occasion.

  But to return to the Glencoe Club party of New Year 1951. Hogmanay is a time for revelry in Scotland where the national drink is patronised with a fervour which must gratify the Exchequer. Climbers usually head for the hills at this festival; some to ensure their discomfort insist on camping on mountain tops, a peculiar diversion, you may say, when the summits are in the path of the North Atlantic hurricanes.

  The Glencoe Club party decided to take in New Year 1951 at Ben Alder cottage in the Central Highlands. It is a snug abandoned bothy on the shore of Loch Ericht that seems to beckon the weary traveller, and it is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a hanged man. The area is wild, with no roads and even the trails owe an apology to the walker. It was close by that that sprightly Jacobite and alcoholic, Prince Charlie, took refuge in Cluny’s cave, a rustic hideout by all accounts which, if it didn’t operate on smokeless fuel, at least had a backdrop of grey Ben Alder cliff which would obscure any smoke signal to keen-eyed redcoats.

  There are seldom good climbing conditions at the New Year, but being a perennial optimist I myself repaired to Glencoe that year with Charlie Vigano, a member of the renowned Creagh Dhu Mountaineering Club, in the hope of stealing a route before the Old Year escaped. Anyhow we agreed there was little climbing on Ben Alder and in those days I didn’t go a bundle on either history or ghosts.

  John Black, John Bradburn, Jimmy Grieve, Sid and Ann Tunion left Queen Street Station, Glasgow, on a Fort William train. Their intention was to get off at the remote halt of Corrour which comprised a brace of incongruous buildings and two lonely signals, set amidst god-forsaken country on the easterly frontier of Lochaber. On the train were other mountaineers with similar intentions, members of the Scottish Mountaineering Club who knew the Glencoe climbers. Dick Brown was one of the SMC party. With him were Dr Malcolm Slesser, Stanley Stewart, Gordon Waldie and several others. Dick Brown takes up the story:

  I think the first sign that things were going wrong that holiday was at Bridge of Orchy station when the train stopped. I went up the platform to see the driver, for I knew that the guard had been celebrating and you have to make arrangements for the train to stop at Corrour, it’s not a regular halt. On the way along the platform I met another climber who told me that there was no point in going to see the driver, for both he and the fireman were in much the same state as the guard.

  The train jerked out of the desolate station of Orchy and skirted the Rannoch Moor. We did stop at Corrour, however, though as the train was long and the station short, the manoeuvre of stopping the guard’s van at the platform was not successful. The Glencoe party, who had their rucksacks with them in the carriage, got out smartly. But not so us, for our gear was in the guard’s van beneath a mountain of other luggage. The guard came along and shouted, “You’ve got two minutes to get your stuff off.” He then disappeared, but he was true to his word: the train pulled away before all our rucksacks and skis were unloaded. Stan Stewart and I were still on board and Stan, who incidentally is a solicitor, rushed into one of the compartments and pulled the communication cord. But the New Year breakdown in communications obviously extended to the communication cord. The train kept going. It was pulled again and the one-time merry guard came storming down the train, as black as an Atlantic depression, asking who was responsible.

  I said to him as he barged in, “If you don’t stop this train, I’ll go right up to Fort William and make a complaint. I’m warning you!” The guard, realising that I meant what I said, released the vacuum brakes and stopped the train about a mile and a half beyond Corrour station.

  By the time we got all our gear assembled on the snow beside the line, the day was well advanced and the weather nasty. Several old women peered through the steamed-up windows of the train with worried expressions, wondering where on earth we were going on such a night in such a place.

  Malcolm Slesser, meanwhile, left behind with some of our equipment close to the station, had climbed the signal post to see if he could spy the wayward train. He couldn’t, so he trudged up the line to try and make contact with Stan and myself.

  Sid Tunion’s Glencoe party had already got a lift in a lorry going to Corrour Lodge. It had waited some time for our group, but eventually had to leave without us. So we set off laden with skis and rucksacks to the Youth Hostel (which has no warden) at the south-westerly end of Loch Ossian, just off the dirt road to Corrour Lodge. There we spent the night.

  Sid’s party had a drum-up of beans and soup in the woods close to the Lodge and then, shouldering their packs, headed up the snow-covered track towards the pass leading to Ben Alder cottage. It was about 8.30 pm and though it was snowing a bit, there wasn’t a great deal of wind. Anyhow, they knew that it was a fairly straightforward trek up over the pass then down to the cottage. They had heavy packs, with enough food for several days. They even had a pressure cooker.

  They had been going about two hours, having covered some two and a half miles up the glen, when they found that the snow was too deep to continue. John Black, Sid and Ann Tunion decided to bivouac for the night, as they had plenty of equipment. They were at the junction of the Uisge Labhair and the Glas Choire streams at a place called the Tramp’s Grave. John Bradburn and Jimmy Grieve carried on, but a short way beyond they, too, decided to bed down for the night.

  At about six o’clock the next morning John Bradburn and Jimmy Grieve decided to push on towards the pass. The weather had worsened overnight and a strong south-westerly wind was blowing. Sid’s party awoke about two hours later after an unpleasant night and decided, like their two friends, to continue. It was easier, they thought, to go with the wind in the direction of the pass than to fight it. They also knew that John and Jimmy would be worried if they didn’t show up at Ben Alder cottage. But the weather was so desperate now that John Black, Sid and Ann couldn’t roll up their sleeping bags. In any case the rucksack straps were frozen solid, like steel band
s on a packing case. It was quite impossible to open their packs to stuff the frozen bags inside. They didn’t have much to eat, despite the fact that they had ample supplies of instant food in the form of chocolate and shortbread. In such an environment, in cold, damp and the cutting blast of the wind, one doesn’t have the inclination to linger over food in any form. The overriding desire is to get to hell out of the strength-sapping blast.

  Meantime, back at the bottom end of Loch Ossian, the SMC party made their way after breakfast along the rough road to Corrour Lodge. Stan Stewart remembers that day well:

  There was now a very strong south-westerly wind blowing where we were. The temperature was just around freezing or a little above. There were blatters of sleet and big wet flakes melted on landing and the gusts whipped up spray dervishes from Loch Ossian, so that the air was filled with cold moisture. Even with the wind at our backs we were soaked. I was wearing an old Home Guard great-coat, cut to jacket length, which I had proudly thought to be my personal armour plate, proof against anything. But its hidden qualities included a large capacity for absorbing moisture and by the time we reached the far end of Loch Ossian we were only too ready to sink our pride and beg the shelter of the estate bothy.

  The keeper, Andrew Tait, after looking over the wretched soaking party, asked them where they were headed, and when they said Ben Alder cottage, he asked, “Are you from Gartnavel?” (a well-known mental institution near Glasgow). But like most Highlanders, the keeper’s bark was worse than his bite and he took them to a snug bothy and ordered his men to cut a pile of firewood for them. The keeper’s boss, Sir John Stirling Maxwell, the owner of the estate, was also a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club.