snow made it cold work, the rocks were easy. The first difficulty was a long shelf or open chimney, slanting up and across a rock face. This required some care, and after it The order on the rope was settled as usual with us by tossing. M'Gregor got the lead, I was second, and Green last.

we decided to rope.

For about 400 feet more we were able to go steadily on till at 2,200 feet we reached the foot of a steep bluff. The rock was a good deal broken up, and several ways that possibly might "go" offered. M'Gregor first tried a chimney right opposite the line of the ridge. It was full of ice, and refused to go. We then moved to the right about twenty feet to a kind of natural staircase, which led up to the lower end of a ledge fifteen feet above. The steps were small, far apart, and covered with ice, so that it was only after a good deal of help from an ice-axe, and many rests to warm his fingers, that M'Gregor wriggled on to the shelf. Unfortunately we had left one of our lengths of rope in the train, so that we were all on one 60-foot rope. M'Gregor required the whole length to reach an anchorage, and I had to unrope. Green then started up, but just as he reached. the shelf, his fingers got thoroughly numbed, and he had to be lowered down again. We had now been more than half-an-hour over twenty feet, it was snowing fast, and we were all miserably cold, so that although we had one man past that particular obstacle, we decided to retreat. It was too late for an ascent by an easy route.

We went back to Kingshouse, and on Monday, over Meall a Bhuiridh and the Clachlet to Bridge of Orchy.

us.

On Saturday, 28th December, we returned to Kingshouse, the party this time being J. Napier, G. Napier, M'Gregor, and myself. The weather was again against A week of keen frost, with cold winds, broke up on the morning of the 28th, and in the afternoon snow fell, and covered the country to a depth of three or four inches. By the morning of the 29th a rapid thaw had begun. Rockclimbing was impossible. We knew that a big snow-filled gully on the Glencoe face had been ascended more than once (see Journal, Vol. III., p. 103), so went out to look for it.

The clouds were low on the hill, we had only a vague idea of the whereabouts of the gully, and the Coupal river drove us too far to the west before we could cross it. We went badly astray, and ascended by Tulachan Corrie, about half-a-mile to the west of the gully. The snow in the corrie was fairly steep at the top (46° measured), but in good order for kicking steps, and gave no sort of difficulty. From the col between Corrie Tulachan and Corrie Cloiche Finne, we walked along the ridge to the top, and then started down a great gully, which runs up quite close to the top. We found afterwards that this was the gully we should have ascended, and that it is just to the west of the ridge climbed by Tough and party. A few feet at the top of the gully were steep, so we roped before starting. The angle soon eased off, and we sat down and slid gaily for 600 or 700 feet. Then we reached a place where the gully widened and steepened, and the burn which we had heard beneath us broke through the snow. The snow in the centre of the gully would not bear, and it was necessary to traverse across and climb down the rocks on the other side. This seemed to be going all right, but it was very slow, and we soon found ourselves with only one hour of daylight left, and apparently more difficulties below. We turned, hurried up the gully and along our track on the ridge, and down the snow slope by which we had ascended, just in time to reach easy ground before darkness came suddenly down, as it does among the hills in winter.

Next day we set out again to look for the foot of the big gully. This time we crossed the Coupal by the Etive road bridge, and then J. Napier and I kept down close by the river until we were opposite the gully to get as good a view as possible of the face. Thick clouds again hung low on the hill, and we could not decide which of two gullies that appeared close to each other was the right one. After some discussion, we chose the wrong one. G. Napier protested strongly, but as he could give no good reason for the faith that was in him, he was overruled. The gully we climbed is, at the foot, about 100 yards to the west of the big gully into which it runs at a height of about 2,700 feet. The rocks at the bottom gave some climbing, and the gully

itself kept an angle of 45' very steadily; but with the snow in the condition in which we found it, the ascent by this route offers no difficulty. We crossed the summit ridge, and descended by Corrie Cloiche Finne.

The thaw had now been continuous for two days, and had cleared the snow off the steeper rocks, so that on the morning of the 31st we thought we might attempt a rock climb. We returned to the ridge which had defeated us in November. The rocks were in much better condition, and we passed the place at which we had stopped before without much difficulty by traversing along a ledge which was previously quite banked up with snow. A hundred feet above we reached a broad ledge at the foot of another and more formidable bluff. We attacked the bluff by a shallow gully ending in a long chimney or steeply inclined shelf. Plenty of rope is necessary here. We had with us 180 feet, and were obliged to use it all. The top forty feet had to be climbed without stopping, as there was no place where a long stay was possible. This was the most difficult part of our climb, but the most sensational was to come.

The bluff we had been climbing was separated from the upper part of the buttress by a gap about fifty feet wide, with smooth vertical walls. About twenty feet below the top of the bluff, and rather to the right, the walls were connected by an arête of loose rock covered with snow. A rib of rock projected from the opposite cliff to meet the arête. Obviously the way was to climb this rib till above the vertical wall, and then get into a snow-filled gully beside it.

The mouth of the gully at the top of the rock wall was filled with a cluster of blue ice, and it appeared likely that we would be forced into the gully before we were above the ice. The place, however, proved less formidable than it looked. The arête was easily reached and crossed, and some excellent hitches in the rock by the side of the gully gave great help there. After getting clear of the ice, we kicked steps up the gully, and climbed a long but easy chimney at its head, which brought us out on to the upper snowfield, about 500 feet below the summit. The mist, which had surrounded the mountain all day, distorted quite

innocent projecting rocks into towering cliffs, and thus lent some uncertainty and interest to the trudge up the snow; but no more real difficulties occurred before we found ourselves among our own footsteps on the summit ridge within thirty yards of the cairn.

We had taken five and a half hours to ascend from Kingshouse, of which time three hours had been spent in climbing 600 feet. Towards the end of the climb it had become necessary to reach the top somehow, as there was not time before dark to return by the buttress.

As time was short, we descended again by glissading down Corrie Tulachan. The snow was harder than it had been two days before, and the speed was further quickened by an attempt to race a cake of gingerbread which broke loose, and made the pace down the slope. While walking back along the Glencoe road, the clouds lifted for the first time during our visit, and we got by moonlight a view of the Glencoe face and of the big gully for which we had searched in vain.

This was New Year's Eve, and our host at Kingshouse had gathered the neighbours-four in all—to bring in the New Year with Highland honours. Dances and toasts and Gaelic songs passed a lively evening, which is among our most pleasant memories of our winter visit to the Moor of Rannoch.

On 1st January we returned to Bridge of Orchy over Sron Greise and the Clachlet.

OLD AND NEW ROUTES ON BEN LUI.

BY JAMES MACLAY.

THE name of Ben Lui (or Laoigh) is not to most people a familiar one. Standing somewhat aloof from the frequented track, he seems to have escaped the compilers of the geography books of our youth, notwithstanding that the head fountains of the Tay issue from his sides; and though of very respectable height for a Scottish mountain (3,708 feet), his fame has been almost confined to the somewhat restricted circle of mountain lovers.

Still he does not altogether refuse to show himself even to travellers on well-beaten paths. His top may be seen any clear day from the steamer on the lower part of Loch Lomond. He is conspicuous from Ben Lomond and many other hills, and from the Ben Venue direction his sharp pyramid outrivals in steepness the twin peaks of Ben More and Stobinian. His steep N.E. face is well seen from either railway between Crianlarich and Tyndrum, and his giant steps appearing high in the background, relieve at one place the monotony of "the wearisome glen."

Whilst Ben Lui has thus escaped the attention of writers of books, and has not been the object of an early cult, his sterling merits as regards picturesqueness and scope for the exercise of the mountaineer's craft have been fully recognised in recent years. One devotee has already inscribed a paper to his honour in the first volume of this Journal, and various other ascents have been chronicled in its pages. His magnificent N.E. face has been the subject of attack and conquest at several S.M.C. meets, and perhaps most of all at the last New Year meet; and the writer thinks the time has come when the accumulated results of these efforts may with advantage be gathered up and presented in collected form.

In doing so the writer feels that he is dealing with a friend. Though not his earliest nor yet his most familiar one among our mountains, Ben Lui has been something to him which no other mountain has been. It is about a dozen years since, after having long felt the attractive force of his