Beinn Eighe and the Triple Buttress. Photo: Nick Bramhall
A winter climber was probably saved from death by the freak intervention of the remnants of a 57-year-old tragedy.
The man, one of a pair climbing on Beinn Eighe, the 1,010m (3,314ft) mountain in Torridon, was caught in an avalanche and swept down a gully yet hit the propeller of a wrecked Lancaster bomber, arresting his fall. The incident is just one of 112 recorded incidences of avalanches in Scotland last winter.
The incident, in which the climber was badly injured but managed to make his way off the Torridon mountain along with his companion who was partly buried by the slab avalanche, happened in December last year, on the first day of the sportscotland Avalanche Information Service’s operation for the season.
The service released details of the number of recorded incidents, though it says there are likely to have been more undocumented avalanches.
In the Beinn Eighe incident, the man’s fall after being swept down the gully was stopped by the wreckage from one of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines of a bomber that crashed into Triple Buttress during a training flight on 14 March 1951, killing all eight aircrew. The climbers were descending Fuselage Gully when the incident happened.
The other notorious avalanche of the Scottish winter was that in Coire na Tulaich on Buachaille Etive Mòr on 24 January, which killed brothers Eamonn and John Murphy and fellow An Teallach Climbing Club member Brian Murray.
Twenty-one of the notified avalanches were believed to be triggered by human activity, the rest occurring naturally. The latest happened on 9 March this year. The service’s forecasts, which start in December, have now ended for the season.
Reports and forecasts, which do not cover Torridon, are available for five areas in the Highlands: the northern Cairngorms, southern Cairngorms, Lochaber, Glencoe and Creag Meagaidh. Text alerts were introduced this year, and blogs from the SAIS assessors give first-hand accounts for climbers, mountaineers, hillwalkers and skiers in the Scottish mountains.
The service if funded by sportscotland.
