Qualla: 2009 Buachaille Etive Mòr Avalanche

2009 Buachaille Etive Mòr Avalanche: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clydecoast, CC BY-SA 3.0. At noon on Saturday 24 January 2009, a climber digging his way up Coire na Tulaich on Buachaille Etive Mòr put his weight on the wrong patch of snow. A huge sheet released beneath him. He managed to drive his ice axe into the slope and hold on as the slab broke away around him, but it swept down on the nine climbers below. Five hundred feet of fall, hundreds of tons of snow. Eamonn Murphy was 61. John Murphy was 63. They were from Northern Ireland. Brian Murray was from Scotland. The three of them died on the mountain that day. A fourth man was airlifted out with a serious shoulder injury. The other five were rescued, dazed but uninjured, after John Grieve and the Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team worked in blizzard conditions to reach them. This is the story of a winter day in Glen Coe, and of a place that has always rewarded skill and humility and sometimes still takes lives despite both.

Image: Clydecoast | CC BY-SA 3.0

2009 Buachaille Etive Mòr Avalanche: Coire na Tulaich

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Coire na Tulaich is the standard ascent route up Buachaille Etive Mòr, the most popular way up one of the most popular mountains in the Highlands. In summer it is a steep but straightforward walk to the ridge, a couple of kilometres west of the peak of Stob Dearg. In winter it be...

Image: Public domain

2009 Buachaille Etive Mòr Avalanche: The Rescue

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clydecoast, CC BY-SA 3.0. The avalanche happened at twelve noon UTC. The blizzard had not let up. Glencoe Mountain Rescue scrambled, with rescue helicopters launching into weather that would normally ground them. The first machine to reach the scene was RAF Rescue 137, which had been on an exercise nearby...

Image: Clydecoast | CC BY-SA 3.0

2009 Buachaille Etive Mòr Avalanche: The Mountain Remembers

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clydecoast, CC BY-SA 3.0. Buachaille Etive Mòr is photographed more often than almost any peak in Scotland. Its pyramid shape, the steep north-east face of Stob Dearg rising above the A82 as you drive from Tyndrum toward Glencoe, is one of the iconic images of the Highlands. Bollywood films have used it a...

Image: Clydecoast | CC BY-SA 3.0