Buachaille Etive Mòr, with the North-North-East Ridge on the right. Photo: Johnny Durnan CC-BY-SA-2.0
The deaths of two mountaineers last winter were a tragic accident, an inquiry has found.
Sheriff Douglas Small said Mountaineering Instructor Chris Walker, 29, and his client Robert Pritchard, 37, died when a small slab avalanche pitched them over a 450m (1,500ft) drop on Buachaille Etive Mòr.
Delivering his written judgement after a fatal accident inquiry in Fort William last November, the sheriff said the route chosen was the correct one and the avalanche could not have been foreseen.
The instructor, from Keswick, Cumbria, was leading Mr Pritchard of New Malden, south-west London, on the descent from the 1,022m (3,353ft) munro Stob Dearg, one of two on the mountain, in February last year. The men had climbed the peak by the Curved Ridge route and had chosen to use the North-North-East Ridge to get back to the glen, avoiding Coire na Tulaich, a known avalanche blackspot.
Sheriff Small said: “As regards the route chosen by Christopher Walker as a descent route, it is quite clear that his choice was entirely the correct choice.
“I do not consider that the organisation or supervision of the intermediate course on that day can in any way be criticised. I am satisfied that climbers participating in the course were properly assessed and scrutinised before being accepted on to the course.”
Mr Walker, a freelance Mountain Instructor, was working for Jagged Globe on the day of the accident.
Witness Ritchie Birkett, 29, who was descending with the pair, said he warned the men an avalanche was starting and watched as the men tried to carry out self-arrest with their ice axes, but they disappeared from view.
He and other climbers in the area made their way down the mountain and found the men’s bodies.
Sheriff Small added: “I am satisfied they were swept to their deaths by a small slab avalanche.
“I am satisfied that the avalanche was completely unpredictable and that the circumstances of this accident were highly unusual.
“I consider that this was a tragic accident which could not have been foreseen.”
