“Winds are from the northeast today. Clouds and rain will be back in tomorrow. ” The words of the chatty host yesterday at Urquhart Castle ring loudly in my head an hour and thirty minutes into the ascent of Ben Nevis. In five minutes clear views over Fort William, the Lochs, and onto the horizon are gone. Visibility through the thick cloud bank is no more than 20 yards. The winds are whipping. It is decision time: push for the summit or turn-back.
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| Big views to the horizon one minute... |
Last night I knew a successful summit of the tallest mountain in the UK would require an early start. Two days of good weather pushed in by winds from the southwest noticeably shifted yesterday. The host at Urquhart Castle explained the weather systems of the Highlands to me while talking fighter jets. No question, there will be a narrow weather window in which to summit Thursday morning.
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| ...the view up the trail 5 minutes later |
An early start I got, but broke every rule in the book, namely: Go to bed “run ready.” With no food packed the night before, uncertainty over exactly how to get to the trailhead and navigate the lower trail sections where lots of other trails cut through, I was anything but ready.
“Morning logistics probably cost me an hour and the summit,” I say to myself still debating whether to push on. The forty or so people from the tour coach that started behind me turned back long ago. Three more parties have flipped around while I debate myself.
“I’m not real good with a map and compass in clear conditions,” a woman opting to descend says on her way passed. “Don’t want to walk off an edge I don’t see.”
Her reference is to the 1,000+ foot drop off the north face of Ben Nevis. The cliffs make "Big Ben" a coveted destination for climbers and feared by day hikers. As the route across the final boulder strewn portions of the ascent becomes less clear, most people cling to their compass and map. With neither in-hand, I’m counting on good trail sense.
I make a deal with myself:
1. If the trail’s route is unclear to the point you couldn’t back-track, turn back;
2. If the gusting winds get dangerously sustained, say over 30 mph, turn back;
3. If it starts to rain turning the mountain to slippery slick rock, turn back
Strange looks come from two more parties on the descent. Clad in long pants, burly hiking boots and gators, heavy coats, hats, tightly drawn hoods, and armed with hiking poles, they clearly think I’m nuts, headed for certain death, modestly clad in shorts and a long-sleeve Nike dry-fit running top. I run like this in colder weather all the time. “What’s the big deal?” I say to myself.
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| Cobbles of Lower Ben Nevis |
The lower steeps of Ben Nevis are mostly paved with rocks like a cobblestone staircase. Heavy rains of the Highlands have no doubt washed out the trail many times requiring reinforcement of the trail bed. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but doing the math later that night proves it is more staircase than path. Rising 4,406 feet over a 5 mile ascent works out to an average grade of 16.6%.
The top 1/3 of the trail is less obvious now and beginning to disappear into the clouds. Just when rule number one starts to become applicable a large hulking dark form appears 20 yards ahead. It stands stone still.
“No Bear stands like that on a wind exposed ridge,” I assure myself. It’s a stone carim, built like a castle and tall as man, and ready to withstand more wind than I hope to ever see. Another 20 yards and there is carim and another.
“Hard to keep the trail?” not so much. This is the best marked trail I have ever climbed. All the hub-bub in the guide book looks at once suspect.
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| Snowfields of Ben Nevis |
Now I am feeling under geared. The woman and her two companions trudge straight up in their hiking boots, gators, and poles without issue. But it is noticeably soft, more snowfield than glacier, meaning I won’t slide off the mountain – good news.
Three weeks ago I selected the Vasque Velocity trail runners for exactly this ascent, this moment. Traveling as light as possible across Europe for a month meant selecting one pair of walking/hiking shoes to do it all, including the day I would ascend Ben Nevis. I tested fifteen pairs of shoes in May as part of Mountain Magazine’s summer trailing running shoe test. Comfortable walking the cobbles in medieval Bayeux, climbing the stairs of St. Paul and the Eiffel tower, navigating the subways in Paris and London, the shoes must now perform on what I brought them to really do – conquer whatever Big Ben throws my way.
On comes the rest of what little gear I have in my pack. Patagonia rain pants and rain jacket – don’t want to slide down a snowfield on bare skin. That feels like skin over a cheese grater.
One problem, “Where's my hat?” One of the few key pieces of gear I was counting on when I decided to push for the summit is inexplicably absent from my pack. Not quite as bad as a fisherman dropping their fly box in the river but really close. It is the first bumble of the day that truly worries me.
It is cold now. The winds are sustained. The temperature has dropped and the visibility is still poor. I am not even sure how far it is to the summit. The sign at the trailhead said plan for a seven hour round trip. The guidebook said 7 miles up and 7 miles back. But there is no way. One and a half hours into the ascent and standing on a snowfield, Big Ben must be about out of boulder field, right?
The Vasque's deliver. Crossing the snowfiled proves uneventful. The second snowfield is more interesting in that you can just make out the mountain dropping away on the left side. Note to self, keep the snowfields on the left!
The ruins of an old stone structure come into view. It looks like the old observatory from the photos I saw, but that is supposed to be near the top. Another 100 meters and the ruins of two more stone structures come into focus through the dense clouds.
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| How about the expansive views from the Summit marker?! |
"Yes, don't get blown off. The summit marker is right there" he says pointing to something 20 yards away that is invisible through the clouds.
The GPS has the route at 5 miles on the nose. Thank goodness it wasn't the 7 miles listed in the (worthless) guidebook.
The second you stop moving, you start freezing. Exposed to operate the camera for a few quick pictures, my hands are quickly numb. Running the last twenty mintues in a rain suit soaked me from the inside out. The only other guy guy at the summit looks concerned for a moment as I strip off all my base layers to "air out" and change into some dry skivvies. Without a hat, it's still a lot of heat loss out the top and hard to stay warm.
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| Requisite Summit Pic |
The carrot cake purchased at the gas station this morning, aged under shrink wrap at least two years, is awful great. It was mildly better than the freeze dried coffee I spilled on myself driving through a round about while shifting the manual transition in our renta-rolla-skate-of-a-car. Of course that is the roundabout with the pea-sized sign for the Ben Nevis visitor center I was supposed to see and didn't while minimizing spill damage. Cripes....could have skipped the (worst ever) coffee and summited while you could see something more than clouds and your rain jacket get turned inside out while your trying to put it back on.
Thirty minutes of downhill running later and it's down right balmy again. Back to shorts and the dry-fit top. It still looks like a bad day on Mt. Washington at the Summit but the rest of Scotland appears to be having a great day.
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| Forty-five minutes on the descente and all is clear |
"You're so lucky" a couch potatoe on the ascent yells as I run passed headed for the valley floor. "I did have to earn the descent" are the playful words that come out of my mouth, a complete lie of course. The descent is Big Ben's way of taking a piece out of you. That guy will figure it out soon enough.
Laura's achilles has been "ok" for a few days now. She is walking around without the gimp and the joy of random shots of nerve pain. Now it's me. The girls make some remark about us not both being able to walk normal at the same time. Two days later and my quads feel worse than after running the Boston Marathon.
"You didn't have to do it in 3:22," Laura reminds me as I stumble around. But she knows I had to run it in at least half the recommended seven hours for the round trip. That's just me.
There is a small epilouge to this tale, or there will be anyway.
Since Laura physically couldn't do the climb and the girls wanted nothing to do with it on a day sure to be stormy, I borrowed a rock off the summit and carried it down. Just like the Hawaiians believe you will be cursed for taking black sand or a lava rock home as a souvenier, it is considered poor form to take a rock off the summit of a peak.
I borrowed the summit rock. It is the girls responsibility to return to Ben Nevis and place it back on the Summit. I intend to go fly-fishing nearby and tip a single malt on the rocks while they do so.
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| The 4,406 foot summit of Ben Nevis as viewed from sea level |
Hey Chris. Great narrative! Wish I could have done it with you.
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