Climbing instructor survives 700ft fall

Published on Monday 2 March 2009 21:21

A MOUNTAINEERING instructor who plunged 700ft from a Highland mountain and escaped with cuts and bruises said yesterday he could not believe he was alive.

Max Hunter, 39, was leading a winter climbing course in Glencoe on Sunday when a snow cornice in the Stob Coire nan Lochan area gave way and he fell into a rock-filled gully.

Other climbers went to his aid and eight members of Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team were airlifted to the area by a helicopter from RAF Lossiemouth.

But Mr Hunter escaped with just cuts to his elbow and knee which needed stitches, and a badly bruised back.

"I can't believe I am alive. The best feeling in the world was opening my eyes, seeing daylight and feeling the pain. It told me that I had survived," he said.

"It is the first time I have been involved in a drama like this and I am upset at having lost my clean sheet."

Mr Hunter, originally from Swansea, now works in Glencoe for a firm offering expeditions and climbing and skiing courses.

He was taking three novice climbers on an expedition when the accident happened. He was checking snow on a cornice when it gave way beneath him.

He said: "I thought, 'Oh my God, this is it', and was waiting to hit rocks. But it never happened. One climber who witnessed it said there was this rush and cloud of snow, and I slid out of the middle of it at the bottom of the gully.

"I have also been told I landed in the middle of a crop of boulders and didn't hit one."