Captain's Log

Ben Nevis

Today’s plan was simple. Ascend Ben Nevis by the tourist route to its summit and then come back down again. At 1345m, Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles. It would be an optional day on the West Highland Way. Most people would have extended yesterday’s walk (see Glen Nevis Cuckoo Finale) and just completed the trail in Fort William. I had decided to camp at the Glen Nevis campsite and this gave me a better base for climbing Ben Nevis. It looked like I had a good day for it too. The weather forecasters had predicted dawn to dusk sunshine and they didn’t seem to be wrong. Well, at least for the moment. Apart from a few patches of mist, which I’m sure would burn off later, all the summits were visible. Except the one for Ben Nevis of course, since it was hidden behind its steep southern flank. 

I intended leaving the campsite at 08:00 , but then got distracted by the whirr of some hydraulic pistons that were opening the front of the snack bar on the site. I stuck around to marvel at this mechanical performance and then thought, ‘Well, seeing as I’m here, I might as well get a coffee.’ I ended up buying an egg bap to mop up the coffee. I looked in the egg bap before biting into it and found only egg white; the egg yolk had mysteriously disappeared. I thought about taking it back and asking for the yolk too, but once I’d put brown sauce on it, I wouldn’t have been able to tell anyway. While I sat on one of their patio tables eating my egg white bap, I watched some early morning walkers making their way up the Ben Nevis tourist path. Most walkers seem to start from the Visitors Centre's carpark further down Glen Nevis, towards Fort William. This makes the walk a little bit longer, but their start would be a little more gradual in ascent than mine. Egg white bap and coffee consumed, I headed out of the campsite to conquer Ben Nevis. 

Glen Nevis

I followed the pavement along the road to the Youth Hostel and then crossed  the River Nevis using the footbridge. The path from the footbridge went straight uphill to join the Ben Nevis tourist path. When my dad used to take me up Ben Nevis in the 1970s, I remember this path being a steep, muddy affair. It was no problem now though since a stone staircase had now been built. There was a wonderful view down the Glen Nevis valley to the shapely Stob Ban (999m) and Sgurr a Mhaim (1099m).  I’d been on the other side of those mountains on yesterday’s walk from Kinlochleven. 

I reached the tourist path and joined all the other walkers plodding up to the top. Well, not all the walkers, since some were coming down. I guess they'd had a very early start and had been up to catch the sunrise from the summit. A little further on, I came across a woman who was sitting down and wailing. Her partner was patting her reassuringly on the shoulder. I took the lead from other walkers who had been told they couldn’t help and I walked past the pair. The curious thing is that I was overcome by a strong sense of deja vu. I’m convinced that exactly the same thing had happened on one of my previous ascents and almost exactly at the same spot. 

The path up Ben Nevis is excellent. Sure, it is steep in one or two places, but mostly the ascent is reasonably gradual. A lot of it has now been given stone steps making it even easier. It climbed around the south side of Meall an t-Suidhe and then flattened out, before arriving at Lochan Meall an -t-Suidhe. I could see a group of people heading away from the tourist path at this point. They were heading into the next valley and were probably igoing to climb Carn Mor Dearg and walk over its arete up to Ben Nevis. In fact, this is probably the best way to climb Ben Nevis in that you see the north face of Ben Nevis in all its glory and the arete is an exciting walk in itself. It is a longer walk though and I was just satisfied using the tourist path today, since I’d walked 99% of the West Highland Way and would be starting the Great Glen Way tomorrow. 

Final Ascent

Some people can be a bit sniffy about the Ben Nevis tourist route. Maybe, it’s because of the sheer number of people that use it. There is no denying though, that it really has spectacular views that just seem to get better and better as you get higher. A few patches of mist sometimes drifted across the spectacle, but they never obscured the incredible views for long. I filled up my water bottles at the Red Burn. At 670m, this was roughly halfway up. The path then zig-zagged up the hillside on an easy gradient. Sometimes the path felt like scree, but most of the time it was reasonable enough. Small patches of snow started to appear in sheltered places. I was warm enough though and needed nothing more than my tee-shirt to keep my upper body warm. Towards the summit plateau, large well-built stone pillars started to appear next to the path. It had been over a decade since I last climbed Ben Nevis and I cannot remember them being there on previous occasions. Maybe that's just my memory.
‘You’re nearly at the top’ commented a walker coming the other way. The path was flattening out now as I approached the summit plateau. It was odd, I’d seemed to have got up here without little effort and it hadn’t seemed to take any time at all. It is possible that the wonderful views had distracted me from my exertions. 

Ben Nevis Summit

The stone pillars led me over the summit plateau. It was very busy at the top, but I made my way up the stone plinth to the trig and for a brief moment I was the highest person amongst the 70+ million people in the British Isles. Well, me and this fellow from Melbourne who was also standing next to the trig. There was a cool wind blowing across the plateau and I put on a fleece. Over to the north, I could see Loch Lochy. That would be my first destination on the Great Glen Way. It didn’t actually seem that far away from here. I needed to get away from the crowds and so I decided to go for a wander over to the eastern side of the plateau to see if I could get a decent view of the Carn Mor Dearg arete. I stepped my way carefully across the boulder field and eventually reached a point that gave me a view of the top of the arete. I sat down to eat my lunch and watch small figures making their way across the narrow ridge towards Ben Nevis. There was a wonderful view further eastwards, over Aonach Beag (1234m) to the Grey Corries. I’d walked over those hills a lifetime ago when I was a lot fitter and had half an ambition to tackle all the Munros. Maybe I was still fit enough to do some of these Scottish mountains. After all, I 'd felt okay today. Admittedly, I hadn’t been hauling my thru-hiking rucksack with me on this ascent. I was using a small, nylon one compartment rucksack that weighs almost nothing. I always take this with me when thru-hiking since it is useful when going shopping and also for extracurricular activities like today. Its orange colour and build reminded me of the ones I used when I climbed Ben Nevis with my dad, many years ago. Lunch finished, I made my way back to the trig. It seemed even busier now. 

Descent

I started to make my way back across the plateau. I paused to look down the fearsome north face of Ben Nevis. Tower Ridge was clearly visible below me. The scale was such that at first I didn’t see the two tiny climbers making their way up. It looked terrifying from here, presumably more so from their position. 

I was definitely walking against the flow of walkers on the descent. It seems people prefer a late start to their walks or maybe they just waited around for those patches of morning mist to disappear.
‘Are you the guy I talked to yesterday?’ A fellow on the ascent had stopped and was addressing me. His face wasn’t immediately familiar to me. He wasn’t the ‘cuckoo’ man. I couldn’t remember him from all the walkers I’d chatted to on the West Highland Way. From his accent, he definitely wasn’t one of the Italian’s I’d talked to at the campsite. He saw my confusion and put me out of my misery.
‘You were having a beer outside the Glen Nevis campsite shop last night and we talked about the Carn Mor Dearg arete’ he said. I remembered now. He’d sat down at another table when I’d been talking to the Italians. He told me he was going to do the arete by dropping down from the summit of Ben Nevis. It seemed an odd way of doing it; most people tackle the ridge from the Carn Mor Dearg side. He had a friend with him who also had a Spaniel. As I remember, there were some hands-on scramble sections on the arete. It might prove interesting with a  dog.
‘There is a stiff breeze on the top, but I saw plenty of people crossing the arete’ I told him. I wished them a good walk. 

The descent didn’t seem to take long at all. Although it was still a little hazy, all the morning’s mist had gone and those views sown to Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil were superb. After turning off the tourist path on to the stone staircase to the Youth Hostel, I came across a slow worm sunning itself on the stone path. I’d never seen one of these legless reptiles before and was surprised at its length (about a foot). It detected my approach and slithered off into the undergrowth. 

Ben Nevis by the tourist path took me 4 hours up and 2 down. As I remember, this has always been roughly my ascent/descent times for Ben Nevis. I celebrated with a can of beer from the campsite shop. It is reckoned that the mountain is shrouded in cloud around 70% of the time. If you are lucky enough to climb it during the cloudless 30% of the time, then you are in for a spectacular and rewarding walk.

Unfortunately, this brilliant day didn’t end too well. I had the misfortune that a young chap camped near to me who had some rather disturbing behaviours. He spent the evening sat in his car with the engine idling, whilst coughing, hawking and spitting out of the car window. When one of the other campers went up to him to ask him to switch his car engine off, the coughing man unleashed a reply with so many profanities that I was actually impressed by his lexicon. Ten minutes later a site manager rolled up in his van and explained the site rules to him. The coughing man retired to his tent and continued to cough, hawk and spit all night.