The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 4
We aimed, as mentioned, to return to Glen Nevis by the tourist path, but within minutes of leaving the summit, David, my youngest son, complained of the cold and wanted to put on his Gore-Tex jacket. I stopped within sight of him and said, “Put the jacket on, quickly now.” He did so, but in the time it took him to do this, the other two were out of sight. “Don’t worry, son,” I said, “we’ll soon catch them up . . . Mum won’t want to loose the Family Allowance!” The other two, not realising that we had stopped, continued on down.
We angled down rapidly along the track in the mist, feeling sure that we would soon make contact with Stuart and Peter. But this didn’t happen. With no map or compass we were not sure of our position. We descended a faint path, then a scree slope, followed by a grass track, unaware that we were heading for Carn Dearg South West. At this point, the saying “up the creek without a paddle” came to mind, but in reality we were on a mountain with no map or compass. Annoyance, then anger ran through my brain, having had the map and compass for the ascent. But we didn’t panic! I stopped, staring at the outline of a footprint and became more aware of our predicament. We continued down at a great rate. It was as if we had an obsession to get to the floor of Glen Nevis, to get down out of this cloud and orientate ourselves. We knew that we were lost and kept heading to our right, hoping to hit the tourist path.
I asked Dave if he was OK. He was, and showed no fear. To him this was just another Follow-my-Dad situation. Going down ever increasing gradients we entered a gully, hoping to follow the watercourse into the valley.
Now we could hear motor vehicles, which I assumed were in Glen Nevis, but I was also aware that we were in a dangerous situation. We scrambled and slid down this steep rocky watercourse and came across a dead deer. Despite our perilous predicament I was excited by this find and went to great effort to try and remove the antlers as souvenirs. No chance! I had to come to terms with the something for nothing syndrome. It was off limits today. I thought it would have been a different scenario if I had my Swiss knife.
Below was a more serious drop of some ninety to a hundred feet. It was nearly vertical. I didn’t relish this with a large rucksack on my back! I uttered an expletive, but Dave calmly stated that such comments would solve nothing. How wise are the young . . .!
We proceeded, I slipped and commenced a horrendous slide for about sixty feet, thinking my bum’s on fire as I bounced down the face, ending with a splash in a rock pool. The air was now blue with more than one expletive! Miraculously, my only injury was to my ego. I was really lucky, I could have broken my neck.
Dave, who later matured into a capable rock climber, picked his way down, making difficult waterfall descending look cool. He now went ahead of me. Here the walls of the gully rose to an intimidating height. Turning a corner in the gully bed Dave remarked, “The mountain rescue have been here with a dummy.” But it was no dummy! It was a decomposing body! I retorted, “Don’t be so ****** stupid. It’s a woman with fish net tights and a cardigan.” It’s amazing what you come out with when the adrenalin’s pumping and the stress level has topped the scale.
David, even after all those years, still has a vivid picture of events. “The smell was indescribable, we both didn’t eat anything for three days, and my dad even lost some weight! It was disturbing enough to see the decomposing body, but the fact there was little clothing, no bag or shoes was the worrying thing, especially in such a harsh environment.”
Reup
What next I wondered. What next? Life can throw up some weird situations, but I had a fixation with “what next?” Numbed, both mentally and physically, we climbed down and round the cleft and the gully opened up. Moving cautiously, we peered anxiously over a brink, the water was leaping between our boots into space. What we saw was a hundred-foot waterfall directly below. Even in our mental state we knew that there was no chance of descending this other than by falling, and there was no way back, or escape up the vertical gully walls. “Let’s just shout for help!” I muttered.
After more than six hours in one spot you’ve plenty of time to reflect on life. It’s only when you experience the consequences of your leisure activity first hand that it comes home to you – the hazards and tribulations that go hand in hand with pleasure. We continued to shout from our misty perch.
At times the visibility improved and we could see Glen Nevis below. Later, in the early evening, we spotted mountain rescue vehicles arriving in the valley bottom. Eventually, at 9 pm, we were located by a member of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team. Once the full team arrived one of them was lowered by rope to join us.
For the next part of this scenario, let’s go back a few hours. Two female hikers were walking in Glen Nevis, enjoying a fine day, even though it was a bit cloudy on the Ben. It was Monday, 31 May 1993. Above the muted noise of the River Nevis, which was taking a leisurely meander down the glen, and the occasional passing car on the single-track road, they thought they heard a cry – a cry for help. Checking this out they realised that it was indeed a distress call from the long steep slope above leading to the shoulder of the Ben. They could see from where they were, the two savage gashes of the notorious gullies rising in great steps as if they were the private stairways of the guardian of the mountain. Shortly afterwards one of the women reported the calls to Fort William police station and the duty sergeant sent a constable in a patrol car to investigate.
Jim Ness, who has already appeared in this tale, is a climber and an ex-member of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, the busiest mountain rescue unit in Scotland. That day he had driven up Glen Nevis with his wife to go for a walk. On their way home they came across the police patrol car and Jim, realising that something was afoot on the mountain, stopped and had a word with the PC.
Though none of them could hear any call for help from where they were, Jim knew that shouts from the depths of either of the gullies could be very directional, probably due to the deep walls, and said that he would go up the glen a short way to try and find a better spot. He was acutely aware of the problems of anyone straying into these two gullies. When he had gone about a couple of hundred yards up the side of the river, he heard the help calls himself, and was sure that they were coming from Surgeon’s Gully, so he retraced his tracks towards the car to confirm this. Sure enough, he had only gone a short way when they ceased, even though he had continued to shout. He then decided to ford the river to make absolutely sure. Once on the lower slopes of the mountain he was convinced where they came from and that they weren’t the bleating of sheep which can often be mistaken for calls for help.
On the way back he met Terry Confield, the Deputy Team Leader, fording the river, and put him in the picture. Donald Watt, the Team Leader, had been called to the police station with Terry a short time before.
Where in Surgeon’s Gully was now the problem. Terry started up the west bank, shouting as he ascended. Shortly he heard the calls again – “Help, help” – and traversed closer to the edge. Though he couldn’t see the party, he could hear them below.
Already more of the team were making their way up the face and he shouted down to tell them the calls were coming from one of the bigger pitches. Some other team members were taken by a SAR Sea King helicopter to a point higher up the flank of the gully. Noel Williams, who took a lead role in the next phase of the rescue, takes up the story.
Noel Williams
From the floor of Glen Nevis we could hear frantic cries for help, and it was obvious that someone was in real trouble high above us. The cries were echoing around the glen, and at first we weren’t certain which part of the hillside they were coming from. So after wading across the River Nevis near the old graveyard, we split up and separate parties headed for Five Finger, Antler and Surgeon’s Gullies. However as we gained height we confirmed that the cries were definitely coming from Surgeon’s Gully itself. So we all then converged on a recognised scrambling route up the left side of Surgeon’s known as Surgeon’s Rib. The cries were being sustained at a very lo
ud volume and this spurred us all on. We raced uphill as fast as possible. Surgeon’s Gully is an impressive gash on the west flank of Ben Nevis. A few years previously I’d tried to make a winter ascent of it. Although we had approached by walking across a frozen River Nevis, we had been disappointed to find a lot of water still flowing deep inside the gully itself. It really is a different world in there. After struggling up several long pitches, we had been stopped by a big waterfall. We only managed to escape from the gully with great difficulty by clawing our way up horribly loose rock and heather on the left wall.
We now had the problem of entering the gully in the right place to rescue whoever was in trouble. We realised that the shouts were coming from above a big waterfall pitch. It was very difficult to look into the gully, but we eventually managed to reach a point above where the shouts were coming from and shouted down that help was on its way. Everyone was gasping for breath and we were sweating profusely. It soon became evident that there was no way we could get into it without a rope. One of the team was still struggling up the hillside with one of our long pre-stretched ropes in a big rucksack. Whilst we waited for this to arrive, we looked around for a belay to anchor the rope to. The ground consisted mainly of steep heather and loose granite blocks, but by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune there was a small outcrop of sound rock just where we needed it on the hillside a short distance above. We were able to place a big tape around a bomb-proof rock spike and also fix a large metal nut in a crack. Meanwhile the shouts from below seemed ever more urgent.
When the rope arrived I tied onto the end and, with several team members taking the strain, I was lowered over the side. I was soon dropping down a vertical wall, and spied two figures some distance below me. When I hit the deck I was delighted to find that both man and boy were uninjured, although the adult, not surprisingly, was getting hoarse from shouting. It was obvious that they were extremely relieved to see me. Both walls of the gully were sheer at this point and there was no way that they could have got out themselves. It turned out that they had come down the gully from the summit. Looking up from where I was this seemed a mind-boggling achievement. I then heard that on their descent they had come across a dead reindeer. I didn’t like to point out that this must in fact have been a red deer. The nearest reindeer I knew of were sixty miles away in the Cairngorms. The father was in an extremely excited state. He said that he had fallen down a big pitch but had landed in a pool unscathed. Somehow his young son had followed suit. He then astonished me even further by telling me that they had come upon a decomposing body in a pool a short distance back along the gully from where we were. The rescue team had no knowledge of a climber being missing on the mountain, so this was a real surprise.
Time was pressing however, and the first priority was to get the two of them out. I quickly improvised a sit harness for the young lad, and radioed the team above to haul the two of us up. They did this with gusto. I managed to hold the youngster away from the rock wall as we shot up, but I caught my arm on a sharp flake and ripped the sleeve of my jacket in the process. It was already dusk, so as soon as Dave was unclipped from the rope he was escorted by one of the team to a more open position where he was uplifted by a rescue helicopter.
I related the story of the dead reindeer and the dead climber to the lads holding the rope. Kevin, ever quick with a quip, remarked, “Oops! There goes Father Christmas.” Amid laughter I was lowered back into the gully and retrieved the father. (On the way up this pitch Reup recalled that he had missed that day’s episode of Coronation Street.)
By the time the two of us had been hauled back up and all the gear packed away, it had become too dark for the helicopter to fly. So we all had to pick our way back down to the floor of the glen by torch light. We were very pleased to have rescued two folk uninjured, but still puzzled by the corpse that had quite understandably given the pair of them the heebie-jeebies.
Reup was eventually reunited with his two sons and Peter at Fort William Police Station He sums up the ordeal.
Reup
We returned to the base of the gully the following day. Typically, the weather was brilliant and we could pick out the line of our descent. It was traumatic for us all. We asked ourselves why did this happen to us? Could it have been avoided? How much longer would the body have remained there had David and I not been funnelled down that frightening gash? Even now, I still think of that eventful day and have the occasional flashback when something triggers my memory.
Although we had considerable experience of walking in all seasons in the English Lake District and Wales, we realised that we still had a lesson to learn when we went to Ben Nevis. Our trip nearly ended in tragedy, all because we became separated and didn’t each have a whistle, map and compass. After the experience of discovering the body, and the involvement of a full scale rescue, we both suffered delayed shock. My son required many months of counselling to overcome those traumatic experiences. We still ask questions: should we have returned to the summit of Ben Nevis, once we became separated, and joined another party to descend the mountain?
We left Scotland hardly able to believe that we had nearly died in Surgeon’s Gully.
The corpse wasn’t, as Reup and party had thought, brought down the next day. There was a problem in getting a helicopter. There is a ruling with RAF SAR helicopters, that they are used to save life, and not necessarily for the recovery of dead bodies.
The rescue team at that time used to frequent the Nevis Bar, a watering hole in Fort William strategically placed as the first pub when descending from the Ben. The conversation of those team members who went there after the successful rescue that night inevitably turned to the missing body. It was an unusual incident to say the least, for none of them had seen the body in a pool, despite Noel having been down to the top of the long pitch where the father and son had been found.
In the history of Scottish mountain rescue this surely stands out as one of the strangest incidents. No one had been reported missing. How long had the body been there? Who was it? Lord Lucan (a peer who had mysteriously disappeared)? This fanciful thought had run through Reup’s scrambled mind when he saw it. It is not an uncommon occurrence in the Scottish Highlands for someone to vanish, and it may be years before the body is found. At any given time there can be several individuals who have just disappeared, seemingly into thin air, under avalanches, into deep heather or, in this case, down a deep gully.
It was arranged that the following morning a small party would return to the gully, by helicopter if possible, and try to locate the body. These were Willie Anderson, Brian McDermott and a member of the CID. It’s usual for police to be involved in an investigation of a fatal accident, even in the most inaccessible places. However, early next morning the clag (an affectionate term for Scotch mist) was still clinging to the flanks of the Ben like candy floss and, as a SAR helicopter wasn’t available that day, the trio set off on foot.
The three rescuers ascended the west flank of the gully and traversed into it via the deer track, which cuts across Surgeon’s at the only possible place – clever deer! Here Brian and Willie first checked above, at the base of the three top branches, but there was no sign of a body there. It must be lower they reasoned, and started to descend. With them they had three long abseil ropes. The solitary representative of the law was instructed to remain where he was at the deer bypass as the terrain below was steep and dangerous for all but experienced mountaineers.
Below, the other two came across the bones of a stag, complete with handsome antlers and they wondered if the Brooks, in their stressed state, had imagined these as human remains: but this seemed impossible. Reup and David had been adamant about seeing a body in a pool. Willie and Brian continued down until a longer pitch necessitated an abseil. Brian, belayed by Willie on a safety rope, went down a full rope’s length, but he could see no sign of a body. He then climbed back up the pitch. This was probably the waterfall down which Reup had fallen and David had climbed.
T
hey called Terry Confield on the radio for confirmation as to the body’s location – if indeed there really was a body in the gully.
Terry, who was acting as base in Glen Nevis, came back on the walkie-talkie, saying that there definitely was a body there, and it was about a hundred metres below the deer track, but he would double check this with the police station just in case anything further had come to light. By this time Brian and Willie felt that they had done as much as possible that day and went back up to collect their personal policeman. He greeted them like long lost brothers. “You’re a pair of mad bastards . . .” All three descended to Glen Nevis.
It was apparent now that it was going to take a concerted effort by a bigger party to find and recover the body. But there was no doubt, it had been double and treble checked, there was a dead body up there! But whose was it? Was it a man or a woman? And why had no one been reported missing on the Ben?
At 10.00 am on Thursday, 3 June 1993, five members of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team were airlifted to the gully by a SAR Sea King helicopter from 202 Squadron RAF Lossiemouth. The pilot was Steve Hayward. They all knew that the chopper was the best and quickest means of locating the man in the pool and of getting him out.
Surgeon’s Gully boasts of the most dramatic gully architecture in Britain, with its depth, massive pitches, cascading waterfalls and ability to make you seem insignificant, like a fly in a high-angled canyon. It didn’t look any more benign looking down on it from the Sea King, where the rotors appeared too wide for the gully. This was a problem for Steve; he describes his side of the job.
Steve Hayward