There are ridges and then there are ridges. To a hillwalker a ridge is something with a drop on both sides which goes along more than it goes up, but climbers 'ridges' can be quite steep and many could just as easily be defined as buttresses. Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor is a classic example. Most of the drop is behind you rather than on one side, and it doesn't actually project very far out from the general slope of the face, especially by comparison with the rock around it. Nobody would call it an arete. It's by far the easiest line up the north-east face of the Buachaille and is within the capabilities
of fit and agile hillwalkers as long as they have a good head for heights. That (plus it being the climbers descent route from harder routes) makes it very popular, but the rhyolite is so rough that over a century of use still hasn't polished it too badly.
The three ridge lines catching shadows below and left of the summit are D Gully Buttress, Curved Ridge and Crowberry Ridge
The grade is a matter of endless dispute, is it a Moderate rock climb or a Grade 3 scramble? It even has two separate entries in the UK Climbing database (three if you count the winter one). In old rock climbing guides it used to be graded Easy, but that grade has fallen out of use since the arrival of scrambling guides, being misleading if you're not a climber and begging the question of "easy for who?". It's now guidebook writer code for "This is an old route that nobody does any more and we haven't checked it". There is general agreement that the crux is technically Moderate, but as it's only one move just above a big ledge that brings it within the scope of Grade 3 in many people's view (mine included).
Jamie Hageman on the crux
Guides tend to rope clients up for it, but the majority of people treat it as a scramble and solo it. I've done it a couple of dozen times and only twice met anyone using a rope, one a guide with two clients, the other taking up a boy of about 8 or 9, obviously a sensible decision. I've done it with plenty of people who wouldn't describe themselves as climbers but had no trouble, and some friends took most of their wedding party up it! There's a fair amount of choice of route, and nearly everything is avoidable, although usually on looser ground. Sticking to the crest is by far the best line though. Bits of it are quite exposed, particularly the top of the first main rib, which people tend to find scarier than the technical crux, which is inside a nice comforting groove.
The crux is the bottom of the groove up and left
Having lots of nice positive holds means it doesn't get much harder in the wet, and my first trip up it was on a damp day in October with Jack Ewing, Pete Bromley and a couple of German exchange students. The mist was right down to the foot of the face, none of us had been there before and the path was much less obvious 45 years ago. We plodded up the scree alongside the Waterslide Slab, which was living up to its name, and arrived at a prominent well-used rib at the mouth of a gully. I had a photo of the Buachaille on my wall so had a vague idea of the layout and knew that we were still too low down for the ridge proper, but there wasn't any obvious continuation other than the rib. This looked rather harder than we expected, though still feasible, and we were debating whether to start up it when some others arrived and told us that you zigzag up the scrotty ground further right to get to the foot of the ridge. Even these days this isn't obvious and many many people have been misled into climbing the rib, which is the start of D Gully Buttress (Severe or Diff, depending on the line you take).
Nate Webb on the start of D Gully Buttress
Once we'd been pointed in the right direction a couple of hundred feet of broken ground led to a basin below a dramatically steep face, the foot of Crowberry Ridge. The only feasible scrambling way ahead was up nondescript steps to the left, but once embarked on these it became clear that we were in the right place and the line became much more distinct. We all found the ridge itself easy, although none of us were climbers and Jack claimed to be scared of heights (a hard claim to keep up once he'd soloed the In Pinn😁). On that occasion we finished up the gully behind Crowberry Tower to Crowberry Gap and the summit, but I now know that there are better ways. We all carried on along the full length of the Buachaille and down into Lairig Gartain, then Jack, Pete and I did Buachaille Etive Beag too. Wish I was still that fit!
Jamie Hageman on the central rib section
I had several more trips up and down Curved Ridge in the 80's, including three descents as part of an 'all the Buachaille scrambles' round – one of my best ever hill days. The most memorable encounter was a December descent in semi-darkness after climbing D Gully Buttress. On the surface of it the latter was the sort of thing to give the Mountain Rescue kittens – a 1pm start in winter, in bad weather with three people who were technically novices. In fact it was a more considered choice than immediately apparent. Although Nick had only done his first climbs a month or so back he was obviously going to be good (he was leading E1 by the summer), Pascal "wasn't a climber" but grew up in Grenoble and had been clambering around mountains since childhood and Steve was a cool headed and competent scrambler. I knew the face well by that time, we were fit and well equipped, it's just about the most accessible climb on the hill and really boils down to just two pitches. I tied Steve and Pascal onto a rope each and quickly ran out 150 feet to a belay while Nick soloed next to me. They all coped fine and a repeat of the process soon brought us to the foot of Hell's Wall, graded V Diff then but since rightfully upped to Severe. I would happily have gone round it in the conditions but Nick wanted to include it so we did. Another short section of belayed climbing and we were all up by 3.30.
Nate Webb on the finish of D Gully Buttress on a rather better day!
I located the top of Curved Ridge without any problem and descending it went fine, taking all the easiest lines (though we did descend the crux because the alternative is nastily loose). Steve said later that being unable to see the drops helped! We were off the rocks before it got completely dark and in the end didn't need the headtorches until we had to find the crossing point on the river by Jacksonville. I'm still pleased with the day because it was snatched from such unpromising circumstances, and it was fun at the time, none of this "Type 2" stuff.
The NE face in winter
I've only done Curved Ridge in proper winter conditions once, with Liz Jolley on a late November day in loads of powder snow. There was so much fluffy white stuff over everything that you got the impression that a fall would be just like sinking into cushions. I'm sure that wouldn't have been the case though! At the top we actually found some hard snow in a steeper gully up left, so cramponned up that, with a nice little cornice to make it feel like a real climb. As both of us thought of ourselves as mountaineers we carried on over the other three peaks of the Buachaille and back down the Lairig Gartain to make a classic mountain day.
The author climbing Crowberry Tower. Photo Jamie Hageman
Better than either of the gully finishes is to traverse right onto the easy bit of Crowberry Ridge and climb Crowberry Tower. This is slightly steeper and airier than Curved Ridge but still more scrambling than climbing. The summit of the Tower is a superb viewpoint and a good place to pose if there's someone on the crest above you.
On the summit of Crowberry Tower
It's a dead end though so you have to go back down the way you have come for 10 metres and take a ledge round the right-hand side. A short groove leads down to the Gap, quite steep but on good holds. The gigantic block just above it is gradually sliding off its perch – the crack behind it is noticeably wider than it was a decade ago. When it goes it will change the place considerably!
Jamie Hageman descending into Crowberry Gap. The moving block is directly above.
Another possible finish is the South Ridge of Crowberry Tower, the ridge just right of the gully leading to Crowberry Gap. This has got more popular in the last decade after being included in a UK Climbing ticklist by mistake for the finish of Crowberry Ridge. From their comments I'm pretty sure that many of the 112 people who have logged it on UKC were under the same impression – even though the latter faces North-East! Rock climbers are notorious for not carrying compasses ☹️. Some logs are definitely genuine ascents of the South Ridge though, as they mention the large loose blocks at half height. In 2015 one of these was getting dangerously wobbly and I backed off just below it. When it went it was obviously going to sweep the top part of Curved Ridge, so I went up very late one weekday evening and knocked it off from above. It's quite a nice route again now 😁.
Crowberry Tower, South Ridge directly opposite
It's surprisingly hard to get a good photograph of Curved Ridge that captures the feel of the whole route – in fact I've never seen one. It's overlooked by the much steeper face of the Rannoch Wall with its classic rock routes and if that's in the picture then it tends to dominate. In distant views it's the position on the face that impresses, making it seem much more exposed than it really is. From close below it lies back, mostly out of view, while looking down it shows far too many big scree ledges. Detail photos of the crux or Crowberry Tower are fine, and you can picture people scrambling against the backdrop of Rannoch Wall, or poised high above the Moor, but you can't get both into the same picture. Possibly something taken from up left might work, near the top of the Blackmount Buttresses perhaps, though I suspect that the Rannoch Wall would still dominate the pic.
Jamie Hageman "poised high above the Moor".
In any case it isn't the photo you get of it that counts, but the experience itself. Hard climbers are sometimes rather disparaging about Curved Ridge, but there are few places in Scotland where you can get so involved in the intricacies of a big cliff with such ease (Ledge Route on the Ben, perhaps). From the road the face looks like another world, a place set apart. For anyone who isn't a climber the idea of getting up that giant arrowhead seems preposterous. It's only when you actually rub your nose up against the rhyolite and get to the detail that you realise just how accommodating it is. Routes like that that are always fun, whether they are something to aspire to at the top limit of your capabilities or just something to salvage a half day with, and Curved Ridge is no exception.
"The Buachaille"
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