With one of those rare Fort Bill bluebird days in prospect, the only logical destination was The Ben. Having exhausted the Hard Rock opportunities, we narrowed our focus to some of the remaining 4* routes. Paul had done Torro a few years back, and I’d climbed Minus One Direct and Titan’s Wall earlier in the year…

A Bivvy on The Ben

… which left a toss up between The Bullroar, HVS and King Kong, E2, for some 4* fun (or maybe both if we got a wiggle on?)

As we arrived at the foot of the Carn Dearg we had the place to ourselves. A few wet streaks, and memories of the damp upper pitches on Swastika the day before (not to mention the pi$$-wet-through crux pitch on The Bat the year before) had us making the pragmatic choice of The Bullroar. This takes a huge left to right traverse of the whole face, and a quiet September Tuesday would be ideal timing as we wouldn’t be criss-crossing others.

By the time we’d geared up and flaked our ropes, any thoughts of having the crag to ourselves had vanished – it turned out that a number of teams had had the same idea. The Ben was buzzing!

Paul fired up the first 5a pitch despite a bit of dampness through the early steep crux.

After a short continuation pitch (which could easily have been linked with P1 in hindsight) Paul led the first of the traversing pitches – only 4a but thin and with mounting exposure above the lip of an overlap.

Here’s a view of a team on Torro (Ben and James)

I followed…

… to a decent stance in a niche, which marks the start of the very thin looking 5a crux pitch. The guidebook talks about stepping down to start with, before heading rightwards, but this is a bit of a red herring (maybe it assumes you’ve belayed higher, under the overlap). The climbing is indeed thin, without an abundance of gear, until you find a peg after about 10m (not visible from the stance).

The next couple of photos are courtesy of Ben:

Now you start gently downwards, eventually crossing Torro. I stopped at a semi-hanging stance on the arete immediately before Centurion (rather than the end of P3 of that route), which meant I could give Paul appropriate attention and also catch the last of the rays!

Here’s the view back to the Torro team (not too much knitting) and Paul visible behind them, starting the traverse.

Paul’s pitch took in 10m of Centurion, passing a climber (Hattie?) on that stance before another airy traverse beneath the next overlap – you can just about make him out on the edge of the shadow.

… reaching another sunny and stupendously exposed stance.

Another sideways pitch crosses The Bat (thankfully nobody on that for a potential cluster-fu@#) and reaches the Titan’s Wall rap station. A short ab gets you to the top of the TW pitch 2, from where 60s just about get you down to terra firma. Atmospheric pics of Sam topping out (and we managed not to knock him off with our ropes!)

A stunning voyage through some pretty unlikely territory, and very sociable as it turned out, without any major rope snaffus! Wandering back to the sacks, we got a good view of a team just starting the second pitch of King Kong.

By the time we’d had some lunch it was heading towards 4pm. We pondered an evening ascent of King Kong but thought better of the potential for benightment, particularly with a team ahead of us. On the other hand, we didn’t feel we’d wrung the last drops from the day. Paul mentioned that he’d never climbed in Glen Nevis, so we whizzed down for a quick lap on Storm for another 100m or so of 4* HVS (but a tad more escapable and nearer the road!)

Here’s the view down pitch 2 with Paul just about visible on the arete (I’d run p1&2 together for a monster 60m pump-fest).

… and a look back at the route in the gathering dusk. Back down at the car by 7 so perhaps we would have had time for King Kong. Next time!