Ben Nevis at night, 13th-14th August 2016

This was the second of three events in a row working for RAW Adventures, who had been hired to provide mountain safety by Action Challenge, who were staging the event for Macmillan, the cancer charity, for their fundraising. It was also my fourth time on Ben Nevis working as a Mountain Leader, and my second time on Ben Nevis at night working as a Mountain Leader.

The weather was, of course, wet and windy, but not too bad to attempt the ascent. RAW Adventures gave us a turn-around time of four hours after departure, which I consider to be a very sensible precaution. We headed across the suspension bridge near the visitor centre, past the Ben Nevis Inn, and up the track to the junction adjacent to Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe, where the participants were organised into groups, and Mountain Leaders were assigned to guide and look after them. Sally (a different Sally from last weekend) and I were assigned together.

We sent on at a steady pace, across Red Burn, and out onto the zig-zags, and managed to get within 50 metres of corner 6 by the turnaround time. Wanting to give the partipants in our group a well-defined point to say they had reached, Sally and I led them the few extra paces to the corner, paused for a minute or two to adjust layers, then we all turned around and headed back, much to the relief of the almost everyone in the group.

As we descended Sally and I let the group, which we had previously kept tightly bunched, gradually spread out as each particiant found his or her preferred pace. Eventually, Sally was quite a way behind me, and when I heard news that she was looking after a man whose knees had locked up, I raced back up to meet her and him, where I administered my "magic bananas" (instept lifters made of Fimo), which freed up one knee and made things a lot easier for him. For more information about this condition, see the page on this blog about knee trouble.

Sally and I and the rear marker for the whole event walked the man off the mountain. There was nothing he could do but tough it out and carry on going down as best he could -- it's a miserable and fairly painful process, but he kept his grace and humour. He was the last participant down, and we were the last Mountain Leaders to finish; the four of we had been on the mountain and in the weather for eleven and half hours.

I returned alone to my tent in the Glen Nevis camp site, feeling tired, but not as tired as I had expected, and satisfied with my night's work, and slept well until mid afternoon.

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