Ben Nevis

[John D Barrack]

The time came for my first munro. I couldn't sleep the night before, due to excitement. So up early packed my bag, double checked I had everything, tripple checked everything. I left feeling confident I had packed everything. So off we drove, an hour later and I realised I had forgot probably the most important piece of equipment...a flask of coffee! Passing the magnificent cairngorms we eventually got to fort william.

Car Park

It was a very hot and humid day (a bit too much really) but the views were outstanding.

The Views were stunning!

After a while we got to the beautiful Loch at the middle, Lochan Meall an t - Suidhe.

The halfway Lochan

Me having a breather

It was about this point that Mike mentioned he only had a half litre of juice with him because he "though that would be enough"... Never mind there was the waterfall nearby so he collected some water there. On we went onto the zigzag path, which seemed to go on forever! The path became quite featureless and was just a rock strewn part. We thought we seen the top, "we are nearly there!" I kept on saying to Mike. However when we got to the "top" I seen the actual top still a bit further on....

We thought this was the top... how wrong we were!

The actual top

After Mikes hopes being built up by me and being crushed by Nevis we carried on. Surprisingly there was still a lot of snow on the top, in May! The snow went up to my ankles which I thought was deep for May as I wasn't expecting any snow there.

Snow

Finally we got to the summit!!!

Me on the summit

Cliff

The view from the top is incredible

North face of Ben Nevis

We actually found this sold sign on the top! Someone must have bought Ben Nevis!

Allt a' Mhuilinn (No idea how to pronounce this so I call it "a big valley")

Bidean Nam Bian from Ben Nevis summit

Snow was ankle deep in summer!

After phoning practically everyone I knew with excitement, I had just done my first munro and was elated. It was after a while that I released there was virtually no wind which to me on top of a mountain especially the highest one in britain was very strange indeed. On we went down back the same way we came.

Us on the way down

Coming down is definitely not as fun as going up. Eventually we came to our saviour... the Ben Nevis inn and had a well deserved pint outside where we heard a psychotic sheep miles away and couldn't stop laughing at it.

Having a well deserved pint at the bottom, however had the idea of putting a pub on the bottom is a genius!

Knackered and glad we done it we headed home.