Ben Nevis, (The Ben) / Beinn Nibheis - "Malicious Mountain" or ""the mountain with its head in the clouds" - 1370m (Munro)
(This is an archive log of a walk Braxony did four years ago. This was in the early unmarried years of Braxony).
Some Ben Nevis facts!
Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles.
There is a ruined observatory on the summit which was permanently staffed between 1883 and 1904. The path was first built at the time of this observatory and was built to allow ponies to undertake the climb and carry up supplies!
The first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis was made on 17 August 1771 by the Edinburgh botanist, James Robertson, (See Dickson J.H. (Ed.) 1994. A Naturalist in the Highlands: James Robertson - His Life and Travels in Scotland, 1767-71, (Scottish Academic Press).
John Williams ascended the mountain in 1774 before providing the first account of the mountain's geological structure.
Keat's climbed the mountain in 1818 and compared the climb to "mounting ten St Pauls without the convenience of a staircase", ( Hodgkiss, The Central Highlands, 117).
In 1847 Ben Nevis was confirmed by the Ordnance Survey as being higher than Ben Macdui and thus the highest mountain in Britain.
Several proposals have been made in the past to make a railway to the summit, unsurprisingly none have came to fruition.
On 17 May 2006, a piano that had been buried under one of the cairns on the peak was uncovered by the John Muir Trust. The piano was believed to have been carried up the mountain by removal men from Dundee 20 years earlier!
Between 1990 & 1995 there were 13 fatalities trying to ascend Ben Nevis.
Bearing in mind this walk was done some time ago I will do my best to briefly describe it.
The weather was fine and clear when we began this walk, descending inevitably, in the last quarter, into thick fog.
We stayed the night before this walk in a lovely B&B called Tigh na Dorchaid. From here we had a short walk to the base of the mountain. We like so many others we followed the pony track up the mountain. It has to be said this is not the most exciting walk. There were a good deal of people, although we did leave fairly early so it was a lot busier by the time we were coming down. Much of the early part of the path is constructed of large stone steps, which is hard going on the knees and makes you wonder how on earth a pony ever managed it up there! The views were however spectacular most of the way up and there was some pretty entertaining people watching too. I believe we saw a lady starting out wearing high heels! We also followed a man carrying an ironing board for a while, (see pictures). - extreme ironing I presume. Towards the top, the path disappears and the terrain deteriorates into scree and the top, well, it's pretty grey and unexciting, (see pictures again), but oh my goodness is it a relief to be there. At some point on the way up Jackson found an abandoned large multi-coloured golfing umbrella! (see pics).
Nature curiosities:
hmmmm .....really can't recall any - just too many folk scaring away any wildlife!
And importantly the food .....
I have no recollection of any lunch at all. But I do recall that the lovely B&B fueled us up that morning with a full cooked breakfast with black pudding. It must have been very memorable as I can see it even now.... And on our descent, we like everybody else, fell into the pub at the bottom of the hill, and enjoyed a very well earned drink. (see last pic)
Pictures:
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