Climbing Ben Nevis

Waving my hands in triumph
at the summit

Climbing the highest point in the British Isles wasn't our primary motive for traveling to Scotland.  It wasn't even an original motive -- more an afterthought.  We came to do the Great Glen Way walk.

But summiting Ben Nevis certainly became a major highlight of the trip, for those of us who did it.

After a night's recuperation in Glasgow from my Icelandic Airlines flight, I joined Jim and Dorothy on the four hour train ride north to Fort William.  Jim has been a close friend since we met as students at the University of Washington, and Dorothy is his Scottish-born-and-reared (but now American) wife.  Jim first introduced me to the art of wilderness backpacking in the Olympics and Cascades, back when we were at an age when carrying a heavy pack for several days was still a matter of pride rather than an intolerable burden!

We had allotted four days to explore the region of Fort William, before beginning the Great Glen Way.  I wasn't all that enthused about attempting the Ben Nevis climb our first full day in Fort William, but the weather was excellent, and there were forecasts of less favorable weather in the days ahead.

Jim and Dorothy

And so June 1st was, in fact, selected for the date of the climb.

The eve of the climb, we ambitiously walked the three miles from our Fort William bed and breakfast to the visitor center at the start of the route up the mountain, making sure we wouldn't get lost while still wandering about on paved roads.  The walk was very pleasant, but long enough to persuade us to take a taxi to the visitor center the following morning.

Ben Nevis is only some 4400 feet in elevation.  The climb, vertically, is about the same as Mount Si near Seattle, which I climb every year in less than two hours.  And yet, British guidebooks warn that the average climber takes 3½ to 5 hours to make the climb, and another couple of hours to come back down.  "Those Scots," I thought to myself.  "All that haggis and "black pudding" has softened their muscles, if not their minds."

The trail certainly began easily enough, and for the first half of the way up we climbed on rough stone steps.  "What next?  Escalators?" I snarked to myself.  Not quite half way up the mountain, the steps lead to a beautiful (and welcome) plateau, on which is snuggled scenic Loch Meall ("Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe"). 

A short time after passing the loch -- which is visible below the ascending trail for a considerable distance -- the steps disappear and we found ourselves hiking on a rough path.  Guidebooks said we would be hiking on scree, which suggests something different to those of us used to the volcanic mountains of the Northwest Corner, where scree means two steps up, and one step slipping back down.  Here, we were still on hard, well-defined trails, but the trails were covered with a sort of loose gravel (well, scree) that often prevented us from getting a firm footing -- particularly on the descent.  Also, the underlying trail increasingly consisted of rocks and boulders of varying sizes rather than firm soil.  In other words, the footing was often difficult.

Eventually we reached what the guidebook called the "zigzags," or switchbacks.  I didn't realize we had reached that point when we did, because I was looking for tighter, more obvious switchbacks.  These were long switchbacks, where the trail continued in one direction for considerable distances. 

The trail, especially after leaving the Loch Meall plateau, was steep, and I was breathing hard.  Tough guy that I am, however, I never faltered or stopped for breaks -- primarily because I was keeping my eyes on Jim's back as he sauntered along ahead of me.  (He complained later about the difficulty of the trail, but this is the sort of "complaint" that one makes to express humility before your fellow climbers.)

Kid at true summit

Finally, the  relentless climb became easier, as we approached the summit.  The summit itself is quite large and flat.  The absolute highest point is marked by a "trig point," or surveyors mark, which in this case took the form of an elevated pillar atop a small rocky mound on which you could stand, gloating, for your photograph.  (One boy wasn't satisfied with this rocky pedestal, and ascended the pillar itself -- a true summiteer.) Aside from this trig point, there were a number of abandoned stone buildings in ruins, including a one-time weather observatory.  The summit was also covered by a large number of fellow climbers, reminding me that my accomplishment didn't make me Sir Edmund Hillary.       

It was Jim and I who were planning to make the climb.  Dorothy came along to the base, she said, just to see us off.  Somehow, however, she forgot to stop walking, and shared our glory at the summit.  Score one for gender equality.

The scariest part of the climb is said to be finding the trail down from the summit in foggy (not unusual) weather.  We were equipped with compasses and instructions on bearings and distances.  Missing the trail can take you over a precipice that I found truly impressive (and scary for us acrophobes) to gaze upon.  But in bright sunlight -- and wearing t-shirts -- the way down was obvious.

Descending a snow field, the
only snow we encountered

I won't describe the descent, which can be inferred from what I've said about the climb.  Except that it was a nightmare.  My boots, which I'd worn for years, somehow crowded my toes on the descent, costing me a toenail and a great deal of pain.  Our climb was a respectable 4½ hours, but our descent took another unexpectedly long four hours. 

Ben Nevis ain't no Mount Si!

We arrived at the bottom, and staggered a few hundred feet from the bottom of the trail to the "Ben Nevis Inn and Bunkhouse ("A wee Inn at the foot of the Ben" as it calls itself).  We had burgers and beer.  I nearly fell asleep in my beer.

The next day, Jim's neighbor Fred arrived in Fort William, determined to make his own climb alone.  He was the youngest guy in our group, a happy extrovert, and he charged the mountain with a certain amount of good-natured swagger.  I wished him well, but was secretly pleased to see him return with sore feet and a haunted look on his face. 

I'm glad we did the climb when we did.  The second day after we climbed Ben Nevis, the area was drenched with rain.  And I needed the three days before the Great Glen Way walk began to regain full use of my legs and feet.

I bought a t-shirt, of course.  "I climbed Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain," the shirt reads.  The claim fits.  The shirt really doesn't.
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I'll describe the Great Glen Way walk in a subsequent post.