Surprises all around.

You couldn’t plan it, but yesterday was one of the 50 clear days per annum that you can actually see something from the summit of Ben Nevis. There was no excuse for it, since the weather had co-operated there was no going back, we had to attempt ‘the Ben’. Michelle left with the crazies (Dave and Rob included…). Mad and I hung back, behind all the rest of the rif-raf. We took our time, we were passed by kids, families and oldies as we admired the views around us, then we passed the same kids and oldies as they stopped to take a break 50 metres up the path. It’s a difficult walk. 5 miles up the hill, 5 miles down. No flat areas for a break. Up and down, rocks and pebbles and gravel. A nasty slog. It was hot and sticky and the path was full of thousands of people who wanted to make the trek up the highest hill in the UK on a beautiful sunny day.

Mad and I stopped for lunch at what we thought was more than half way. We studied the map, turned it around and around and worked out that we must have been close to 1000 metres high. I felt quite proud of myself.

“As high as a Munro” sounded good in my head.

The coming down was tough on your knees, feet and neck (neck because you strain to look down and watch where you tread). Almost worse than the going up, but not quite. We took an alternate route home for the last stretch, via the Ben Nevis Youth Hostel and did a little of the river walk back to the parking lot. It was there, outside the visitors information centre that we discovered that our map reading skills were slightly out of whack! In fact we had only made it up about 600 metres and had we gone for oh, about 10 minutes more, we would have come to a lovely loch where we could have sat and enjoyed our sarnies. No longer so proud, I was still happy to have given it a go.

I shouldn’t have listened to all those naysayers out there who sprout stuff like “it’s boring”, “it’s easy”, “it’s a waste of time!” It’s not any of that. It’s a tough walk, yes there is a path – but it doesn’t make it easy, it only ensures you don’t get lost; yes there is not much area for interpretation – you can’t just cut through the farms and make your own path, it’s too steep and too much scree in most areas. Really, for most of us psuedo hillwalkers – a path is quite nice! As far as ‘boring’ goes, I’ll never understand it. The views, the views the views. What more could you want? Anyway, for most of us, a hill is a hill is a hill. And this sure is a mother of a hill.

All of our group made it down alright with just about everyone getting to the top. It was a sorry sight in the pub at 6.15pm though, a lot of exhausted, sore bodies desperate for beer. Absolutely no-one thought they would bother coming back to try it again!

Just another successful hillwalking excursion. And then…..

On the way home, the bus blew a tyre. Inside rear. About 10 miles from the nearest pub. We hobbled along at 20mp/h until Tyndrum where we had to wait for a new bus to come from Glasgow… back to the pub, the chippy, the bus surrounded by midges – we finally got home at around 12.30am. It was a long day to Fort William and back.

Not something I want to repeat in a hurry. Next hillwalk is August 28th – I think we’re planning to decline due to schedule conflicts, but we’ll be back in there September 9th when we’re off for a hillwalking weekend to Skye….