CATHEDRAL PEAK, 1973

BEN BEATTIE: Challenge/Discovery 1973

Because I was the least successful at kayaking, normally I would be absolutely downhearted and feeling inferior. No one here looks down on me. Nothing is said. It’s no big deal. I had difficulty – difficulties are overcome. It is due probably to our instructors:

John: He’s English. He’s the master. True compassion. He explains, inspires. He always assumes the positive. We don’t hear the bad because we won’t fail a teacher.
Allan Derbyshire: English. He’s more cautious, but the same good attitude. He looks a little worried. I am missing something, some basic knack, and even though I smile and have the carry-on spirit, he knows as well as I that it is not good to push forward foolishly just for the sake of pushing forward.
Ben Beattie: He is Scottish. He has the same style. It is the feeling we were supposed to get in Yoga from our teachers but just never came about.
Rick: He’s young still but quite an expert. He is handsome and carries his head proudly. The others are handsome also but have more inner strength and maturity, therefore their physical appearance does not call attention to itself.

For the most part, I am happy, and I get along, but something separates me at times. It’s like I have to prove something, or get rid of something first before I really fit in. I don’t know if I feel this because of my new religion. What is fellowship?

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Our leaders decided that we would leave our packs and everything except our ice axes and climb Taylor Peak. Before we started climbing, Allan read an inspirational quotation to us: "When the morning’s freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles quiver under the strain, the climb seems endless, and, suddenly, nothing will go quite as you wish – it is there that you must not hesitate" (from Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld).

Guess what Allan said? “Cindy, you can be the leader to the top of our very first peak! I want you to get busy, and I don’t want anyone to get up there before you do!” I was happy. He was half-joking, and it was no honor that he was bestowing on me, but it meant something to be the first one on the first peak. Allan explained the duties of a leader:

1) Look about and choose a course, preferably the best way in relation to speed-difficulty-safety.
2) Set a pace that is comfortable to slow and fast climbers so that no one falls behind.
3) Keep the group together.

Climbing Taylor Peak, we had to learn how to go up a steep snowbank. I kept slipping backwards and sliding all the way back to the bottom. I finally did it. I was the last one, and I’m supposed to be the leader. It wasn’t easy to do those things, but we all got up there, and it was worth it to see the way those mountains look all around you. Allan and Ben were impressed and said there was nothing like it where they come from in England and Scotland.

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For the early morning ascent of Cathedral Peak, the leaders divided us into two groups. Ben went ahead to break a trail through the snow. Allan led the first team up, and then our team went in this order: Rick, Forrest, Me, Virginia, and Dave. Dave, being the last ready, was almost forgotten, but we tied him in and took off. The route we had decided was a gully of snow to the left of the peak. We trudged along, step by step, following Ben’s tracked switchbacks across the snow. This makes climbing easier, the zigzagging instead of trying straight shots upward, but even so it was by no means easy. I was sick. It was altitude sickness working on an empty stomach and a sleepless night. I did not enjoy the climb. It was a beautiful morning though. It was comforting and cheerful to see the snow change slowly and stealthily from icy white to a gorgeous gold.

Our team caught up with the first group, and soon we all caught up with Ben. Then we reached the top of the gully and climbed over the ridge to the top of Cathedral Peak. I was the last one. I sat by myself while the others talked and laughed. I wasn’t exactly exalted by the view from 14,000 feet, but I must admit it was grand. Ben sang a haunting traditional ballad for us, something like "The Isle of Inisfree" or the “The Isle of Home.” We signed the book attached to the summit’s flag, which all the conquerors of the mount are privileged to sign. Time to climb down.

For the descent, Allan headed his team down the same gully that we used for the ascent, while Ben led our team down the opposite side in another gully. This proved to be tricky. The snow was already soft, and our footsteps slipped often, and I found out later that we were in danger. An avalanche could have occurred at any time. Ben was very worried, though he did not let us catch on. We slowly and cautiously inched along, until about halfway down David’s helmet strap broke, and the helmet rolled down the gully. Rick tied off to go down and retrieve the helmet, and Forrest was now in front. He became the new leader with Ben giving directions from the back. Ben was tense, and his instructions were terse. We belayed each other one-by-one, front and back, and finally we made it over the danger zone. Then we got to slide down on our feet and on our ice axes.

Tonight around the fire we talked about learning and school and education, and I told how I want to study many areas, not just one. I talked about the Medieval era, English folk songs, the musical group Pentangle, and chivalry. And guess what Ben told me? He knows the man who taught Burt Jansch how to play guitar. Said that he is unbelievable. I asked Ben to sing the traditional that he was singing on top of the mountain today, about leaving an island of home, but he inclined his head and declined to sing.

I’ve just put my last pieces of wood, so I will have to quit writing soon. But I will try to finish tomorrow. I just want to say that I never want to leave these beautiful things I am learning and seeing. I love it here. But I am still so sad, not really in my place, but only at times, perhaps when I am tired. Perhaps it’s my own fault, and I should contribute more of me to others in the group work, and then I wouldn’t worry about myself so much. But tomorrow is a New Day.

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I am sorry to tell you now that Ben Beattie (1945-1978) died in the Himalayas several years ago in a climbing accident. I found out when I sent a Christmas card to his address in Scotland, on the tenth anniversary of my time in Colorado. A woman named C. M. Davidson kindly sent a note dated 12 September 1983, with a clipping of the obituary:

“FORMER CLIMBING INSTRUCTOR DIES. A former Edinburgh instructor has been killed in a climbing accident in the Himalayas. Mr. William “Ben” Beattie (33), who was a ski-ing and mountaineering instructor at Glenmore Lodge outdoor training centre, was a member of a combined British and Canadian expedition attempting a traverse on Nanda Devi.

“Mr. Beattie was the outdoor activity instructor at Ainslie Park School and leader of the tragic school expedition to the Cairngorms in November 1971 when five pupils died after being caught in a storm.

“The incident in which he was killed happened on Friday, September 15 [1978]. His body was recovered and buried on the mountain.”



Bill Campbell, a pilot for the Scottish Saltire Branch of the United Kingdom Armed Forces, gives background for the disaster. A group of pupils from the mountaineering club of the Ainslie Park School had planned a weekend in the Cairngorms from November 19-21, 1971

On November 21, 1971, Ben and his girlfriend Cathy Davidson led a group of teenagers on an expedition in the Cairngorms. They divided the young people into two groups.


My own father passed away on September 15, 1974, a year after my Colorado experience, so the news of Ben’s death on the same calendar day is particularly poignant. I now understand why Ben may have been so worried about keeping us safe in our descent from Cathedral Peak, just eighteen months after the disaster that took the lives of five teenagers and a young instructor on the Cairngorm Plateau in Scotland. That may explain his stirring song at the summit and his melancholy mood at the fireside later that evening.We never know what burdens people around us may be carrying. "In the quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eye can't see" (LDS Hymnbook #221). Ben was haunted by the weight of failure. Did that weight pull him down to death on Nanda Devi. Ah, Ben, you taught us, you made us laugh. Your love made a difference in my life. Such successes overrule any downfall.