Ben Nevis - Cracking weather!
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:34 amMyself and a friend of mine Tim are both fairly novice mountain walkers but young and keen to start bagging a few. We had planned a date in advance to climb another together, my preference being Ben Nevis as the obvious one to tick off. I had a failed attempt climbing Nevis previously 2 years ago as I went up with my father who is a very experienced walker. Unfortunately not long into the climb my father took ill and we needed airlifted off, thankfully it didn't come to anything serious and my father is now fine. From then the incident gave me more incentive to want to climb Nevis, almost a goal to beat the mountain as daft as it might sound.
So anyway, we had been looking at the weather forecast in advance and found a window of good weather in the last week of March, the preferable day being Wednesday 28th. We arrived in Glen Nevis and set off on the mountain path around 10am. It was fairly cool, slightly chilly but really sunny with little or no cloud in the sky. Glen Nevis had a slight mist which was starting to burn off in the sun, so we made our way up the shoulder of Creagan nan Gabhar.
I wouldn't say it was particularly busy, maybe since it was fairly early in the year. We did past 3-4 couples/groups up to this point. It was really getting quite warm and was feeling fortunate I started off wearing my 3/4 length shorts.
We made our way up onto the flatter plateau area by the lochan.
We continued on up towards the zig-zags as I looked on back at the view in awe, feeling very fortunate we had the perfect weather.
We were about 3/4 to about 2/3 up and we hit some snow, which was refreshingly cooling.
Before too long we hit the summit which took us about 3 hours. There was a few more groups up the top, in particular a group of 3 girls who gave the both of us a heart in mouth moment. They were fairly young about 16 to 18. They just caught our eyes just walking away from the snow covered ledge above the north facing corries. The girls were obviously unaware of the danger of the snow giving way, I can say they were very lucky.
We stopped for lunch at the summit and headed back down the way we came. Weather stayed glorious all the way back which took us about 2 hours. All in all it was a great day out in which we were fortunate with the weather. Its given me more appetite to do more hill walks, I may just follow in my fathers footsteps.
So anyway, we had been looking at the weather forecast in advance and found a window of good weather in the last week of March, the preferable day being Wednesday 28th. We arrived in Glen Nevis and set off on the mountain path around 10am. It was fairly cool, slightly chilly but really sunny with little or no cloud in the sky. Glen Nevis had a slight mist which was starting to burn off in the sun, so we made our way up the shoulder of Creagan nan Gabhar.
- Glen Nevis
- Glen Nevis
I wouldn't say it was particularly busy, maybe since it was fairly early in the year. We did past 3-4 couples/groups up to this point. It was really getting quite warm and was feeling fortunate I started off wearing my 3/4 length shorts.
We made our way up onto the flatter plateau area by the lochan.
- Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe
We continued on up towards the zig-zags as I looked on back at the view in awe, feeling very fortunate we had the perfect weather.
We were about 3/4 to about 2/3 up and we hit some snow, which was refreshingly cooling.
Before too long we hit the summit which took us about 3 hours. There was a few more groups up the top, in particular a group of 3 girls who gave the both of us a heart in mouth moment. They were fairly young about 16 to 18. They just caught our eyes just walking away from the snow covered ledge above the north facing corries. The girls were obviously unaware of the danger of the snow giving way, I can say they were very lucky.
- Girls had just walked back from the edge
- We hit the summit
We stopped for lunch at the summit and headed back down the way we came. Weather stayed glorious all the way back which took us about 2 hours. All in all it was a great day out in which we were fortunate with the weather. Its given me more appetite to do more hill walks, I may just follow in my fathers footsteps.
