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| on the summit plateau with my brother |
On 2nd July my brother Bruce and I did a day hike up Ben Nevis, a reconnaissance for our traditional mid-summer night hike, which for the first time since the tradition started was not on Snowdon. Then on 3rd July we did the actual night hike of Ben Nevis, which served as practice for a piece of work I was doing the following weekend for Charity Challenge – I have to admit that I had been hill walking since 1977 and never in all that time been up Ben Nevis: I certainly wanted to fix that before guiding professionally on the mountain.
The adventure started on 1st July: I travelled to the midlands by train, then my brother picked me up and we went all the way to Fort William in his car, driving through the night. We arrived at the Glen Nevis campsite at three o'clock in the morning, just as it was getting light, to be greeted by swarms of indefatigable and ever-vigilant midges. We left the car at the entrance and padded quietly to a vacant plot where we quickly and quietly pitched our tents for a well-deserved snooze deep into the morning.
After a deliberately slow start, we headed off to the visitor centre, where we encountered a random stranger called Martin, who was considering cancelling his planned solo hike up the mountain because the summit was shrouded in fog. We said that he could tag along with us as we were both experienced hill walkers and each able to navigate in fog, provided he accepted that the hike was a reconnaissance so we might not be striding out all the time. He agreed, so the three of us set off.
The route up was straightforward, but I spent a lot of time carefully checking out the junctions and waypoints, in preparation for walking at night in poor visibility. I was particularly careful at the top of the zig-zags (from where we took the longer but snow-free southerly route instead of the snow-bound straight-line route) and on the area of multiple paths just before the summit plateau.
The plateau had a covering at least a metre thick of good crunchy snow, and we walked carefully with a slightly crouchy gait in case of there were any unseen snow holes. I navigated by compass bearing, but eventually we picked up the path again and followed it to the triple standing stones, then it was an easy traverse to the summit, but with the route bearing set into the compass in case the trail disappeared, of course.
I was disappointed at the filthy state of the shelter: people, do not leave your litter there!
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| at the ruined observatory |
On the way down we were more relaxed and less earnest (OK: I was more relaxed and less earnest: my brother had been relaxed the whole time), and once we had descended out of the fog, we enjoyed the views of Glen Nevis, and then of Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe (Little Lake of the Hill of the Fairies) and the intriguing adjacent hill Meall an t-Suidhe (Hill of the Fairies).
After the lake, Martin started pulling ahead, as he had a train to catch, but my brother and I took our time, and ambled down and back to the campsite for some well-deserved fish and chips and a decent quantity of ale, and to feed the midges.
The next day we walked into Fort William and mooched around the outdoor goods shops and made a brief visit to the museum, where there is a huge block of aluminium. Then we returned to the campsite, got our kit ready for the night hike, and repaired to our tents for a pre-hike snooze.
Once it was dark, we set off exactly the same way we had gone the day before, and again I spent a lot of time carefully checking out the junctions and waypoints, so that when I retuned the following week I would know the route confidently.
The weather was cold and very windy, and by the time we reached Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe I was not at all sure that it would be safe to go all the way to the summit. After discussing conditions with some Mountain Leaders who were working on a charity walk that night, we decided to keep going as long as it was safe to do so, and decide about going to the summit when we reached the plateau.
It turned out that the area adjacent to Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe was the windiest place on the whole route that night: by the time we had made our way to the edge of the summit plateau, conditions had eased, so after I had made careful note of what the junctions and waypoints looked like in the dark, we pressed on to the summit, were we stayed for a few minutes until I had had enough.
As before, the descent was more relaxed, but by the time we had passed the waterfall we were both dog tired, and to be honest, neither of us took in much of the scenery as we plodded back to our tents in the early morning light, and when we reached them, we were glad it was all over. It is a much tougher hike than going up and down Snowdon, which seems like a pleasant jaunt in comparison.
After long sleep and a huge late breakfast, my brother drove back to where he lives, hundreds of miles away in England. I stayed on for the following weekend's Charity Challenge event, satisfied at last that I knew my way up and down Ben Nevis.
