Granite & Ice: Tower Face of the Comb VI,6***

New routeing in the Clova hills is fun but Robbie and I needed a proper objective. The weather for Saturday looked good and we decided to go to the Ben Nevis and try the Tower Face of the Comb VI,6***. This mixed or in late season icy mixed route was first climbed by Robin Smith and Dick Holt on New Years day in 1959. The route gained a reputation and still has some of it left. We reached the car park at 7 am and with good fitness after the long Angus walk ins reached the CIC hut in little more than an hour. We immediately walked up Coire na Ciste which appeared otherworldly in the soft early February morning light. The Comb is the triangular feature to the left and above of Robbie...

Here is Robbie approaching the bottom of the Tower Face of the Comb through some unconsolidated snow.

The Nevis guidebook description of the climb is at times not very clear and we climbed up Comb gully to Hesperides ledge before realising that the climb started much lower down. The guidebook says that it is 1/3rd up but it is actually close to the bottom of the buttress proper. Here is Robbie downclimbing Comb gully after realising that we were in the wrong place.

A good orientation feature is the little ridge to the left of Comb gully. The Tower Face of the Comb starts just below that. Here, Robbie starts the first pitch...

... and here he tackles the left facing corner...

There is a ledge above and a steep, short wall leads to the belay. Pitch 2 is a 25 m long groove that goes through the lower buttress. Here, I start that groove...

... with some thin and sometimes poorly protected ice and neve climbing...

... to reach a fantastic position higher up.

After that some easier neve to the belay. The third pitch traverses past blocks and flakes to ascend a steepish, turfy wall to again reach a ledge. Here is Robbie, with the SMC approved winter climbing beard, starting pitch 3.

The belay is on a ledge next to an obvious rock window on which I am sitting here, whilst starting pitch 4...

After that the guidebook is a little unclear as it says to go to the end of the ledge and then to climb a corner on the left. The ledge ends at a big block and to the left there is a steep wall which is climbable at a harder grade than 6. I was teetering around, decorating the wall bits of gear and finally decided to have a look on top of the block. And as it happened, one or two not too bad moves led via easy neve to a sit-behind-a-block belay on top of the Comb. Robbie had the unthankful task to remove all the gear that I hung in random places which took him some time. Two easy pitches finished the climb. Here is Robbie starting a perhaps grade II pitch up the tower of the Comb...