I'd been hoping to catch a sunrise over the CMD arête for a fair few years now and it finally seemed like a good opportunity presented itself, with good weather coinciding with the late May bank holiday weekend. The day started with a trip into Fort William, with the obligatory stop at the Morrisons, to organise all our camping gear, just like everyone else seems to do in that car park...

We grabbed a coffee at the Wildcat café, one of my favourite coffee shops in the UK, and filled up on lunch before aiming to head to the North Face car park around 2pm. We'd planned on camping somewhere before, or on, Carn Mor Dearg but needed to give ourselves enough time to either find a pitch, or bail early head back down to a somewhat more sensible position.

2.30pm and we managed to get parked in the NF car park easily, taking our time to prep lunch for the next day and apply all the suncream and midge repellent. It was 3pm before we actually set off, heading up the Allt a' Mhuilinn for a few kilometres.


We knew the following day was due to be hot and sunny so we were a little concerned about the water supply, given we'd need it for cooking dinner, cups of tea and morning coffees - and then having some left for drinking water until we found some more the following day.

We decided to stop and fill up as much as we could as the track diverted away from the CIC path and up to Cárn Mòr Dearg. We hydrated as much as we could, and filled up every bottle we had. The backpacks were suddenly a lot heavier, knowing we had the steep climb up to CMD coming next.


We made good progress up the slope, stopping a couple of times to take in the views and appreciate our surroundings. It seemed quiet, only seeing a few people coming down, which was quite understandable given the time of day.

Half way up the slope, we came across a little burn, so it turned out we didn't need to carry up as much water as we did, but at least we didn't have to stop again and filter out some more water.

As we approached the top, I was getting slightly nervous about where we'd be able to pitch, given the steepness of the grassy slope and the top of the mountain turning to boulders, we really didn't want to have to retreat further down and retrace our steps in the morning.

As we followed the path towards CMD, we turned off a little early to head to a col where I figured there could be a potential flat section. Upon arrival there was a perfectly tent sized area that looked too good to be true. We weren't as close to the start of the ridge as I'd hoped but we felt it was probably the best we were going to get.

We waited half an hour, cracked open a beer and sat and enjoyed the sunshine with not a breath of wind. Once late enough, we decided to pitch the tent and get set up for the evening.


With the tent set up, we fired up the stove, ready to eat our Firepot meals we'd been looking forward to all afternoon. Dinner went down a treat and we retreated into the tent as it started to get a little chilly at over 1,200m.

We re-emerged at sunset, the light was stunning and we could see so far into the distance, trying to pick out hills in the far north and over to the Cairngorms.


We went to sleep reasonably early as we'd set the alarm for 4am the following morning, giving us enough time to put down the tent and head across to the start of the arête ready for sunrise. The wind pepped up a touch overnight so we didn't sleep the best, but as soon as the morning alarm went off, we were eagerly up and excited for the morning ahead.


All went to plan and we reached the start of the arête ready for sunrise. The horizon had a low bank of cloud on it which snubbed out that early glow, but after 20 minutes or so, the sun rose above it and started to hit the arête and the north face of Ben Nevis. I'd been after an image of this scene for years and it was finally time to capture it exactly how I wanted it.


Snow bunting swooped around us as we started to cross the CMD arête, it was absolutely stunning; we couldn't quite believe our luck.


The morning was perfect, with no wind and a sunrise casting stunning golden light across the scene in front of us. The views across to the Mamores was the best I'd ever seen.


We kept stopping, to take it all in, deciding to have our breakfast and coffee stop half way across the arête. There was nobody else in sight, and we sat for a good half an hour and enjoyed the moment before pushing on towards Ben Nevis to hopefully arrive at the summit before the bank holiday crowds.


We reached the summit around 8am, and to our delight had the very top all to ourselves, with only a solo walker and his dog joining us very soon after. We stopped on the top for a further bite to eat and looked south, taking in all the distant hills, looking across to Ben More on Mull and across to Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Croin.


Other folk started to arrive and we thought it would be a good time to start heading down. We passed endless people heading up the tourist track, feeling smug not being one of them, having enjoyed the finest route up to the UK's highest summit.

We stopped by the lochan on the way back down, for lunch and a swim before heading back towards the north face car park ready to take a well earned early check in at the Glen Nevis campsite for a well earned rest - with the obligatory BBQ and beers!

It's fair to say I can probably count on one hand some of my most stand-out moments spent in the mountains so far and this just became one of them, what a fantastic experience.

Scotland delivered again.