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Published: July 16th 2010
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On the trail, Ben NevisWell, the tallest mountain in the UK is deserving of it's title. Having not climbed Snowdon or 'The Pike' as the pros call it, I had no idea what to expect from Ben Nevis. Always wanting a challenge and seeing it as valuable training for peaks 'to be climbed' in the near future we planned out trip with a three day window to allow for bad weather. We booked into the dorm rooms of the local Glen Nevis youth hostel which is placed very close to the start of the 'tourist trail'. The proximity to the path is pretty much all that can be said for the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, in all other respects it is a bog standard youth hostel and having not stayed in one for some years, it was an interesting reminder....
Anyway enough of that! We checked in monday and the notice on the board said '80% chance of clear Munros' so our first day, Tuesday, it was to be. In the female dorm that night there were excited murmurings about the promised good weather, bragging of the many other hills and mountains people had climbed and the rustle of gore tex as an elderly lady
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View from the trail decided to show everyone just how well equipped for the climb she was!
I had read that the ascent/descent round trip could take up to 8 hours so we decided to head off early at 7am after a quick brekkie at the hostel. The trail started literally the other side of a bridge across the road from the hostel. This cuts off approx 1 mile from the start of the tourist trail but is obviously a steeper start as it covers more height over less distance. It then joins the normal trail which then sweeps round to some beautiful lakes before zig-zagging off up the mountain. We saw only one other group as we headed off and over took one more who had stopped for breakfast on the flatter part of the trail but other than that we saw literally nobody on the trail which was slightly worrying!! Had we got the weather wrong?! But it stayed dry, clear and bright and as we ascended we were blessed with the most amazing views of first Glen Nevis, then as we got higher, the surrounding mountains and valleys also. The lakes looked like giant polished mirrors laying in the deep green
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More views bowls of the foot hills. Absolutely beautiful and quite literally breath-taking!
The walk gets harder as you come to the top of the zig-zags and once or twice the path is just scree or isn't there at all. At about one to one and half hours into the walk, we came across an area was being rebuilt by three men moving massive rocks which are dropped up here by helicopters in large sacks. What a journey to work! At this point we were clambering over the muddy ground which was pretty slippery with a rather steep fall away! Don't look down!
Then the path turned into rocks (like scree) completely and this was when we started to really feel the burn on the thighs and lower back! As we entered this section the good views vanished and we were suddenly in a thick swirling mist of cloud. Whilst there was still a small amount of visibilty we could see snow settled in various places around and straying to the left of the path at one point the mountain just fell away quite alarmingly down a sheer face of rock with a large mound of snow and ice just poised on
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We were hoping, the summit, not likely!! the top ready to fall!!!
Out of the mist large cairns materialised, quite spooky at times as they are about the height of a person standing silent and still in the mist. As we got to each one, a further one could just be made out in the distance. The feel was suddenly quite different and the hot summers day we'd been walking in and sweating profusely changed to this cool, eerie place which felt to all intents and purposes like the surface of the moon. We added a stone each to the cairn as the tradition goes and carried on. Each time we saw a cairn in the vertical distance we though it must be the last but they persisted on for what felt like ages but in actual fact was probably 20-25 minutes!
Finally all of a sudden the ground flattened out and we found ourselves at the summit, a eerie place, a bit like a deserted village with a tumble-down cottage, a couple of memorial stones and a small mound with which the summit has been marked. Rather unremarkable but a great sense of acheivement washed over us followed by the realisation that we now had to
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Sheep on the mountain retrace every step back down!! We took exactly three hours from start to summit. By this stage, from starting out in t-shirts only, we had donned our fleeces and jackets and hats and still we were shivering, and suddenly felt very cold indeed! We downed some lunch and chocolate bars rather hastily and then the need to get moving again and generate some heat came on so we turned round and headed back down... now for the hard bit!
Initially at least, the downhill was great, using different muscle groups leaning backwards rather than forwards was a very pleasant change and we set off at a blistering pace. As it was now hitting half ten, eleven we began to encouter other climbers on their way to the summit and exchange greetings and encouragement that the end was in sight! There turned out to be LOADS of trekkers as the weather was great and what was initially a trickle turned into a full scale snake. It became quite hard to descend whilst others were ascending sometimes two abreast over slippery rocks. We couldn't believe that some people were so oddly dressed in mini skirts and light trainers without daypacks or anything,
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Stopping for a breather with some athletic sheep! maybe they weren't intending to summit but if they were they'd have been COLD! The last half hour of the walk, the steeper path back down to the bridge near the youth hostel was quite painful, the steps are just steep enough to make you have to land heavily on your foot and after this went on for some time the boots weren't cushionning the blow as well. I had thought the ascent would be the difficult bit but the descent was far harder on the body. I had heard people say this a million times but you only learn it properly from experiencing it yourself.
Like getting off rollerskates when you've worn them for hours, our legs felt odd and clumsily unaccustomed to the flat last few yards across the road and into the youth hostel. Our stiffness onset and we celebrated with juice and a well-deserved cup of tea! After a long(ish) hot(ish) shower (this is a youth hostel!) we headed out into Fort William for a curry, what a day!
Ben Nevis is a fantastic climb which gives panoramic views of astoundingly beautiful highland surroundings. It was my first mountain and I hope the first of many!
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Vix
non-member comment
Very impressed!
Wow, this is fantastic! Obviously a lot of hard work but some beautiful views! It sounds like a good idea to start off early. I remember going downhill in a Cretan gorge for 6 hours, certainly harder work than you'd think! Glad the curry softened the blow! ;) xxx