Advertisement
Published: March 3rd 2006
Edit Blog Post
The Lonely Mountaineer
Commencing the ascent with the Highlands at my fingertips. Back in Fort William now after hitchhiking the measly 40 miles from Oban. It's the tail-end of my first 'highland experience', but that didn't mean there wasn't room for one more day of action-packed adventure!
Even though there are extreme blizzard warnings, heavy snowfall and ice plaguing nearly all of Scotland and most of Great Britain at the moment, the only place the weather seemed to have forgotten today was Fort Willy! Even cars driving into town this morning (from probably not that far away) were carting about a foot of snow on their roofs, but here the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. So Rich, (the subdued- but insane- Canadian guy who manages the hostel here) and I decided to spend the day conquering the final highland frontier! Ben Nevis: the highest mountain in the UK measuring 4406 feet (1344m, but the imperial measurement sounds more impressive 😊. In Gaelic, 'Ben', or 'Beinn' means mountain and apparently 'Nevis' (Nibheis) means poisonous or terrible! Mount Terrible! How... reassuring!
We set out at about 9:30 and spent the next three hours or so walking up... and up...and...etc. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day-
The Loch
Completely frozen-over. and in winter! (What's with all this sun?? Good ol global warming!😉 In Fort Bill they have a saying that goes "If you can't see the top of Nevis, it's raining. If you can see the top, it's going to rain." but today we were incredibly lucky. I think I even got sunburned!
After conquering the first slope we passed a loch which was completely frozen over, and decided now might be a good time to put our jumpers on. Until then we'd been too hot to wear our jackets/coats/beannis/gloves...etc, but snow and ice had started building up on the path ahead of us so we thought an extra layer would be wise. Just after the loch, the path turned completely to snow and we were now trudging through the tundra! Mile after mile! I've got a feeling that I was getting a whole lot more out of the snow and ice than my Canadian compadre at that stage, but he got right into it a bit later.
After trudging and trudging until I thought my circulatory system was going to explode (whenever I stopped, I could actually
hear my heart beating! It sounded like a wet sponge
Charlie with Captain's Log
...note pro-looking types in background. being squeezed out to a beat! :P Scary!) we eventually got to the top, where a bunch of pro-looking types decked out in full-on Himalaya gear laughed at me in my $10 army coat and home-made beanni-scarf and at Rich for his sneakers and rolled-up sleeve Sherpa appearance. When we had stopped, I did start to get a bit cold in the -15°C or so temperature- not helped by my steel capped boots which seemed to be spreading their steely coldness to most of my feet. The view, however was breathtaking. The sky was clear and the whole of the Scottish Highlands were spread out in front of us, looking like some snow-capped alpine wonderland. You could see all the way up the Great Glen (the massive fault-line that splits Scotland in two) from the Isle of Mull (even Tiree, actually) to Loch Ness, and a bit of the Isles of Skye, Rum and Lewis in the north. Incredible!
Just enough time to have a hot chocolate, (attempt to) write in my notebook with a frozen pen and create some artistic yellow snow was enough, though and we decided to head down before we froze.
Once blood started
The way down
Trying to balance on one of the less-precarious ledges! coming back to his brain, Rich started to feel a bit adventurous, so most of the descent was spent tobogganing down near-vertical slopes on our arses, frollicking madly and scaling great portions of the mountain in single leaps, falling into 5 foot-deep snow and exploring new and exciting ways to find the quickest possible route down! I kind of placed my life in his hands at a few points when we were trying to pick out a path while perched on various cliff-faces and ridges that all seemed to have quite a long drop. When we were almost down to the loch, I joked at guessing how many people would follow the footprints down to our insane path, and soon after that we saw about 4 of the pro-looking types in ski garb trying to manouever their way down our route looking slightly worried and bewildered!
The time it took to get down was about a third of the time it took to get up, if that's any indication as to how many corners we cut, and once we were at the bottom, we stumbled across a conveniently located pub and treated ourselved to a wee well-earned drop of
The End
Nevis from the comfort of the pub. whiskey.
Tonight I'm planning on catching up on all the sleep of which I've been deprived over the last few nights in the haunted Oban hostel. If this hostel is haunted, there's no way I'll know, because I'm guessing it's about 10 minutes before I crash entirely...
...so Gute Nacht!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.12s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 61; dbt: 0.063s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
norn
non-member comment
Gosh Charlie, I sure hope your guardian angel stays with you. The photos are great. Lots of love