One afternoon in January 1954 Lees and I were having tea in the Clachaig Hotel, Glencoe, when the door burst open and a young man, white and wild and obviously shocked, stumbled into the room. He told us his friend had fallen on Bheinn Fhada.

They were members of the University of Bristol Mountaineering Club, staying at the climbing hut of Lagangarbh at the head of the glen. That day these two had climbed Twisting Gully on Stob Coire nan Lochan. They had come over the summit, over Bidean nam Bian and round the Lost Glen to Bheinn Fhada. This last is a long ridge around three thousand feet high with gullies seaming the south-east face. The gullies run down to a lonely glen, the Lairig Eilde. They were newcomers to Glen Coe but they knew that if they descended to this glen and followed it down, they would come to the main valley about two miles downstream of Lagangarbh.

They found a nice-looking gully with plenty of snow in the top of it, and they started to glissade. The man who told us the story did a standing glissade; his companion sat. Almost immediately the second man lost control and disappeared from view.

His companion glissaded for some distance and then was forced to climb down when he encountered pitches which had not been visible from above.

He reached the fallen man, who was unconscious. Then he continued down to the glen, left his axe on the path at the foot of the gully, and came to the Clachaig for help.

Was his companion alive? we asked. He couldn't be sure.
Lees lost no time in organising the rescue. The youth hostel was telephoned to provide bearers for the stretcher, while the proprietor of the Clachaig drove us up Glen Coe to its junction with the Lairig Eilde. Here we were joined by other members of the UBMC carrying the stretcher from Lagangarbh.

We started up the pleasant almost-level path below Bheinn Fhada. It was a lovely starlit night and the bogs were frozen. I was in front with my headlight beaming as I searched for the gleam of an ice axe stuck in the ground beside the Continue to page 2