On summit day, we woke up to intermittent rain. Enjoyed a lovely full breakfast while staring out the picture window at Torlinnhe. It was time to hike, so we grabbed our stuff and jumped in the car.
We sailed through the round-a-bouts and made it to the trail head around 9:30am. Geared up and hit the trail around 10am, definitely NOT an “Alpine Start”! I love the long summer days of the northern latitudes!
Glen Nevis:
Dennis Above Glen Nevis:
Dennis Just Below Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe (1,722 ft)
Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe
View of the Red Burn, and Ben Nevis Trail Disappearing into Clouds:
Red Burn Up Close:
Over the course of the hike, I estimate we passed ~100 people. Trail runners and hikers alike. It rained off and on during the 3 hours on our way to the summit. At times the gusty wind was biting cold. I was super happy I brought my dual layered mountaineering gloves!
Clare Staying Warm in Bracing Wind & Rain:
Dennis at a Cairn (~3,940 ft)
Dennis Just After Climbing up Snow Bank, Near the Summit!
Dennis at Ben Nevis War Memorial, Us on the Summit!:
We did Ben Nevis in 5 hours total, including snack & lunch breaks. It was a very enjoyable hike, the trail was very well maintained the entire way. By CMC (Colorado Mountain Club) standards it would qualify as a moderate C-rated hike.
Dennis Avoiding a Dangerous Snow Cornice:
Close-up of the Snow Cornice:
Visibility Degrades to 50 meters, can you spot the next cairn?
The difficulty in summiting Ben Nevis lies entirely in the last stretch to the top. There are perilous cliffs on both sides of a ~300 meter wide passage. With heavy cloud, it is a narrow margin for error. Novice hikers, with little navigation experience, are at a serious risk of being suckered into the Five Finger Gully or Number 3 Gully during this crux section of the hike!
It’s really amazing they don’t connect the 50 meter cairns with some sort of chain. I’d imagine this alone would save lives. The Cairns go from the beginning of the crux until the summit, so this would be a low tech, relatively low cost way of reducing the fatality.
On the way down, the clouds lifted and we were rewarded with some seriously amazing views. A rescue helicopter flew by at one point, so we hoped nobody got seriously injured…There must be an awful lot of “off the couch” hikers who attempt Ben Nevis and don’t make it!
After our lovely hike, we stopped in at the Ben Nevis Inn for a snack and a frosty beverage. I had a Stella Artois and Dennis had a Shandy-lager. The potato leek soup was delicious. We split a piece of pecan pie with some ice cream for dessert. Yum!
For Dinner, later on, we went to Cafe Mango where we ate green curry and pigged out on garbanzo beans, spinach, and aloo gobi. Food was decent and the service was way better than the Grog & Gruel.
We hoped for better weather the next day.
Tags: Ben Nevis, Ft. Wiliam, Hiking, Scotland