Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland and the United Kingdom.
The summit is 1,345 meters above sea level and is the highest land in any direction for 459 miles. Ben Nevis stands at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Highland region of Lochaber, close to the town of Fort William.
Route – Mountain Track
The Mountain Track to the summit (also known as the Ben Path, the Pony Track, or the Tourist Route) remains the simplest and most popular route of ascent. They decided to change the name because people thought it was too easy and took harder routes and ended up getting stuck. So don’t be fooled by the names, it’s not so easy! We took around 8 hour and a half which is pretty good considering we stopped a lot of times.
The hardest route to Ben Nevis is CMD Arête. This is not something we were willing to try as we are not experienced climbers and this being the highest one of all we have climbed.
FYI I’ll let you in for a secret there are no toilets but if you find the big rock your in luck. It’s just before the halfway point, keep hydrated but don’t drink too much. When I say everyone knows this rock I mean everyone.
Weather
So we chose to do this in summer as we know the weather in Scotland is not the best and can change drastically. It started off as a sunny warm morning and turned into a snowy, cold and windy atmosphere once we had reached the top. It was hard to believe we were at the beach the day before tanning in the sun. Honestly, you go through all four seasons on this mountain. The snow was more like hard ice. Just to paint an even clearer picture for you guys, there were people skiing up there. It was so beautiful it felt like we were in the French Alps.
What to Pack
We were not deceived by the sunny, warm weather we have been experiencing in the week we spent in Scotland. From a distance, we could see the snowy top of Ben Nevis from our Airbnb so we knew it would be cold and this was going to be our longest hike – we were going to be very hungry people.
The day before we headed to Morrisons for some food.
- XL pasta bowl
- Chicken tika Sandwich x4
- Energy bars
- Plenty of water
- Energy drink x2
- A victory drink
- Tissue
- Portable charger
- Camera
- Sunglasses
- First aid kit / Medication
- Extra jumper
- Face warmer
- Gloves
- Hats
Summary
We felt very accomplished hiking Ben Nevis. Most people do all 3 peaks in 3 days, which is amazing but for people who don’t like walking and we are not experienced hikers and did not train for this, we are very pleased to have done it. We finished the day with our victory drink and KFC as we were unable to sit at the top due to how many people were there and I’m not going to lie, I was a bit scared because of how steep and icy it was. Would we do it again? Maybe one day, Never say never.
Check out our blog on Snowdon Summit