UKH

I wonder if anyone can help me. In winter 78/79 I climbed a supposed very recent route on Indicator wall on the Ben with Alex McIntyre. We soloed for a while, then put the rope on. The line went straight up to a very poor belay, then traversed right and pulled over a roof before easy ground up to the plateau. I can’t find any route description that fits, so maybe we did a hybrid line? I ,d like to solve the problem if I can.

Hello Phil

Sounds a bit reminiscent of Albatross (first climbed early 1978 by Mick Geddes & Con Higgins)). There are some poor belays and you climb left over an overlap at one point. The final pitch is Grade II/III in good condits.

Trouble is, you could probably make your distant recollection fit lots of lines (or bits of lines) on Indicator Wall!

Cheers, Col

Thanks for that I’ll check it out. I do clearly remember a traverse right and a move through an overhang which I couldn’t see beyond. Tim Lewis, the editor of Mountain magazine was middleman and he was on/off all the way and I had a poor belay, so I watched him like a hawk. Turns out Alex couldn’t get a decent belay, so he untied an just took the rope in. I never climbed with him again. I said to him “you’ll end up famous or dead” He was both! On balance I should have slotted him.

Ha ha! I'm glad you survived to tell the story! Reminds me of another tale of a notorious mountaineer in the early 90s (was quite famous at the time and now long dead) who allegedly got to the top of route on Indicator Wall in pish weather and couldn't be bothered to hang around for his partner - so tied the rope to a snow bollard and b*gg*red off!

The second survived - and similarly never climbed with the guy again!

It must be an Indicator Wall thing.

In 2007 we were sunbathing and lunching on the ledge just at the top of Tower Ridge and had a superb view of the action on Indicator Wall.  A leader was near the summit but was calling down for slack, increasingly angrily. His second was below the overhang and we could see he had slack but the rope was jammed around icicles not far above him. Thinking he couldn't hear his leader we shouted relayed instructions to the second. Some time later he got the message, freed his rope and his leader summited. When the second started climbing his leader paid out all the rope, the second shouted "take in" to no effect. We went onto the plateau, found the leader and told him he needed to take in. He said, " I know. I am just teaching the ****** what slack is".

I somehow doubt they ever climbed together again.