On Belay

            “Come outside.  It’s incredible!” Dave, a naturalized Scot by way of Wolverhampton, whose scenic wonders were an acquired taste, was standing in the entrance to the hut. I clumped out and gasped thick white steam in cold astonishment.  In front of us the vast Moor of Rannoch was ablaze in a glory of gold and purple.  A few tiny limpid clouds lingered like smoke on the flat plain.  All the rest of the sky was a bright steely blue.  On our right the rocks of the Buchaille were light pink, smeared in white.  A few patches of mint green were the telltale signs of ice, wonderful, reassuringly climbable ice.

            From this angle the Buchaille was not the perfect melodious triangle seen from the road over the moor, but rather an imposing lump, almost self-satisfied as if saying, “I know I am not perfect from all angles, but I am quite happy the way I am.”  Or it was as if the divine sculptor had created a masterpiece from one angle and then nodded off.

            We cramponed up the lower slope of Crowberry Gully unroped. Steep brick -red walls of rock hemmed in our great white way up the mountain. The spikes on our feet, the axe and spiked peg hammers in our hands formed four adhesive claws in the cement-hard snow. It was the best of conditions.  After our first careless stomp up the gully, I had happened to glance between my legs.  The slope, steep and featureless, went a long way down to end in a sheer cliff. A slip here would be curtains.  I wanted to put the rope on, but I was stubborn or cowardly enough to wait until Dave suggested it.

            “We might as well rope up and belay to this.” So saying he slapped his axe against what looked like a road sign standing upright in the middle of the gully.

            “What’s on it?” I said in crisp, panting smoke signals.

            “It says,” He scraped the frost and snow off the board, “Beware Ice!”

            I knew that the major ice pitches were above us, so it must have been placed in this off road position by a mountaineering prankster. “How on earth did it get up here?” 

            “It was one of the Creagh Dhu after a ceilidh in the Kingshouse.”

            “You mean he brought it up here alone and at night?”

            “Sure.  And he soloed the rest of the gully afterwards.  He said it got harder because the road sign was the best ice axe he’d ever had.”

            “I don’t believe a word of it.”

            “Neither do I.” He held out the ropes, “Just look after these.”

            Belayed to the signpost while Dave led up the slope, I was more relaxed, the only disturbance to my inner karma were dribbles of snow he kicked down all managing to funnel themselves malevolently under my collar to give the back of my neck a miserable time. Soon I was following him with the rope lightly teasing me upwards.  On reaching the stance, I kicked a wee resting spot, let him adjust the rope and then I was off in front.  Boldly leading into the unknown, I gasped to myself while kicking my feet hard into the snow. The weapons in my hands were bashed