Since I completed my ML Training in August 2023, I've been asking people who fancy a hill to let me know if they want to head out with me. My Scouting colleague Alasdair was serious enough about something he wanted to do and so we got some time in the calendar.
As the time approached we had lots of good conversations about what his ability was, required kit, food, weather and plans. I had a few options in mind and we discussed those in advance.
I picked Alasdair up at 0700 on Saturday morning in Gunter the van and we headed up the A82 on quite a nice morning. No stops were required and the traffic was fairly light. We had a chat on the way up about Alasdair's motivation for wanting to climb Nevis. He'd completed the West Highland Way in the last few years and felt like he had unfinished business with Nevis - he'd heard of lots of people climbing the Ben straight after the West Highland Way and wanted the double. Fair play! I am always keen to hear why people want to climb, so that in turn gave me motivation to help him achieve his goal.
We arrived at Glen Nevis at 0920 and the main car park was full, so we followed a sign up to an entrepreneurial farmers' field and paid for the stay for the day. He chatted a bit about Scotland being beaten by Germany at the football and wished us well on our walk.
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| Aldo, ready to take on The Ben |
The visitor centre was busy at 0935. I stopped for a bit to hear some of the conversations - someone bailed on the 3 peaks, someone else will come back so it doesn't beat them again. It was a mix of excitement from people ready to head up and disappointment from 3-peakers who hadn't managed it after a 3am start.
We headed up the main tourist path, having decided that a longer day might bring disappointment and the forecast lightning later in the day added risk on ridges that neither of us fancied.
There were a LOT of people. My normal trick of chatting to everyone became tiresome really quickly but we still got a lot of good conversations in. I kept the pace quite slow and we concentrated on gaining height. By the halfway lochan, we were surprised at how far we'd come. It is a long and steep trudge through literally hundreds of people. We did get some pretty nice views however.
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| Glen Nevis |
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| Masses of people |
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| Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe |
Not long after, we took a brief break and spotted this guy, climbing the Ben in crocs.
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| Crocs? |
We were both amused. It's easy to have a go at people on the hills risking injury or our MRT teams but there were so many people around, surely if something had happened, we could have all solved it? Maybe his boots were in the rucksack...
Alasdair and I pushed on and eventually hit some big snow patches, which were well-compressed with the traipse of feet and a bit slidey. No real risk and it wasn't steep.
We hit the summit about 1305 and, I kid you not, joined the queue for the trig point. Really it's just folk getting their pics taken. We had ours done, repaying the favour from a bunch of lads who were enjoying a beer.
We found somewhere to sit and made sure we ate plenty. I was aware we'd been on the go since 0700 so this was kind of our second lunch. We watched in amazement at the amount of people milling about on the rocky top, the highest point of the British Isles.
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| Trig Queue |
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| Goal Achieved |
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| Summit madness |
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| View down the North Face to the CIC Hut |
It's a pretty magical place the summit of Nevis, you're so high above the other mountains, it feels quite awe-inspiring. We had a view, which was nice and we looked over the edge down Observatory Gully to the CIC Hut.
It wasn't cold, and there was hardly any wind, but we headed back down, taking a slight diversion on a slightly different path, and it got us some peace away from everyone. It was so peaceful to look over the Glen Nevis hills.
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| Finding some peace in the hills |
From there it was back on the main path and down. You forget how much height there is, the descent is fairly relentless.
We were back at the visitor centre just after 1620, then it was back to the van to freshen up and get changed. Goal achieved and a delighted Alasdair!
As we drove into Fort William, the heavens opened. We had avoided it all day and watched some heavy clouds build, but we were in the van and dry. We headed for the Clachaig for dinner, and then it was down to Glen Etive for a nice wee night in the hut.
I headed for a run the next morning and then we were down the road by about 2pm.
Distance: 17.96km
Time: 6h 48m
Ascent: 1,453m
Munros Completed: 210 for me, 5 for Alasdair
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