Scotland Campervan Adventure - Ben Nevis (8.5 miles)

So we finished converting our campervan in time to go to Scotland at the beginning of June and it was the best 11 nights away I think I've ever had! Such an adventurous and outdoorsy holiday. Obviously, climbing Ben Nevis was on our to do list but it was weather dependent as I wasn't willing to risk heading up there in bad weather. We had quite a strict itinerary because we were visiting a few different places so we only really had 2 days where we could climb Ben Nevis. We drove up via the Lake District and stopped overnight to break up the driving and journey for the dogs, then we went on to Loch Lomond and Glencoe, then on to Skye and then retraced our route back down to come home. We originally had planned to hike Ben Nevis on the Saturday but we ended up travelling further up and finding a campsite a day early because we couldn't cope with the midges at Loch Lomond and just needed to get the awning up and have a shower it was soooo hot.

We found this amazing farm campsite who had room for us for 1 night which was perfect and set up the van and awning at Lagnaha farm. Really friendly owners and it was such a good location and straight off the road just 10 minutes drive from Glencoe. We decided on a whim to hike Ben Nevis on the Friday because the forecast was better and good thing we did because Saturday turned out to be stormy, rainy and very overcast which would not have made for good weather on the mountain although lots of people still went up it!

Our plan for this trip originally was to summit as many munros as possible and because of how busy I'd been on the van conversion and work and how anaemic and crap I was feeling and some personal issues, I hadn't really done as many hikes and long mountain walks as I'd planned so I was a bit nervous that I wouldn't even make it up Ben Nevis!

Luckily with deciding to do Ben Nevis on the Friday and changing campsites that night, we were in Glen Nevis campsite which was only a 5 min drive away from the car park for Ben Nevis at the visitor centre. We did the Mountain Track obviously, as I'm pretty sure all other tracks are pretty hardcore and require a lot more detailed knowledge/aren't suitable for dogs.

The path is quite easy to find and follow and is quite nice to start off with. It's a slow steady climb and Mark made the mistake of saying "oh, it's not as bad as I was expecting, this is fine." I didn't answer him or comment because I knew that as soon as one of us voiced that it wasn't particularly difficult, it would probably become solid pretty fast. We kept climbing up and didn't see many other people. The weather was perfect for walking - warm and cloudy with sunny intervals and really clear, which was great.

As we walked further, the path gradually got busier and more populated. We had left later in the day so we didn't start walking until 11ish. A lot of people head out really early so quite a few were coming back down as we were going up. We didn't see many dogs though! The beagles got a lot of fuss.

We felt pretty good walking up and not too tired so we only had a few very short breaks for water and a snack and kept going, which in hindsight was probably a mistake! It was deceiving. I'd read that the lake was a halfway point, although by the time we got there (which was about 1 and a half hours) I started to question if that was even accurate.

The views were amazing though and being able to see the entire length of the path as it was such a clear day and all the people going up and down it and how far we'd come was really cool!

My dad had lent me his GoPro Hero 5 as I don't have a camera at the moment and so we could get some footage. It was really easy to use and great quality pics and video!

The Lake

We kept walking for ages and the path just continues to climb although the terrain isn't particularly difficult. We've done a lot harder walks but it is just an endless slog to the top. We'd been walking for about 3 hours and it felt like we were gaining on the summit, every time we got to the top of a hill and looked over, we expected to see the trig point but it just wasn't there and we were confronted with the zig zagging uphill path and a stream of people just making their way up and down.

Stopping for a rest and admiring the view.

It was at this point that we didn't want to ask anyone coming down how much further we had to go, the thought of them telling us it was another 2 hours + walking was just too much to bear. [By this point, we actually had 1 hour 20 to go until the top but we'd been walking for so long uphill, it felt impossible to carry on].

Then something happened which I've never experienced on a walk before. Mark started to flag. If you haven't read any of my other blogs and know nothing about us, let me bring you up to speed. Mark is a nimble mountain goat. Despite being Dutch and not spending any of his life climbing any mountains or walking at all until he moved over to Wales in 2011, he continues to outperform me on any and every walk we do. To give him some credit, he is lean and plays football and has an active job so is pretty fit. But it's pretty depressing as someone who walks a LOT more than him to always be flagging behind as he skips merrily up to the summits of whatever mountains we are on with Dexter and Gracie.

So, to see him slow down and exude the mental fatigue that is associated with really hard mountain hikes was GLORIOUS. I had this sudden burst of positive energy and I'm not sure if it was the realisation that for once, I was doing better than him - mentally and physically - or whether it was the bag of Fridge Raiders I ate for a boost. He said his hips were hurting with every step and then said "If it's not over that tump by there, that's it, I'm turning round and going back down." I didn't want to laugh in his face because that seemed inappropriate and not helpful to someone being defeated by the mountain...but I told him we'd been walking for over 3 hours and we couldn't turn back now - I damn well wasn't going to head to the summit by myself - what a waste! So on we went....

This is where I realised psychologically I had the advantage and carried on heading to the summit (or maybe it was the Fridge Raiders).

A woman we passed told us to keep the dogs on a short lead when we saw the snow at the top as there were some very steep precipices. I thanked her for the information (her dog was off lead) but did tell her our dogs are never off lead and certainly not on long leads on steep mountains! We got to the top of the next climb and it felt like we were on the home straight, only to be confronted by this:

WHAT THE HELL?????? Where is the summit?! You can see Mark as a little smudge in this picture halfway up. So we got to that huge pile of snow...managed to stumble through that 30 metres and then it was still another 15 minutes to the top but at least it was less steep! I'm still in the process of editing all our video footage from Scotland, only done 2 parts of the journey so far - if you're interested in seeing them, check them out here, but thought I would share a clip I made at this point to highlight how absolutely exhausted and defeated I felt.

"Can't even enjoy the views at the moment, let's just get up there Dex!"

So we finally made it!!!!!!!!! To be honest, the top of Ben Nevis really isn't that impressive. You have to be careful at the top as a few metres either side of the path, there are some very steep cliff edges and you'd only have to misstep close to the edge to plummet to your death, as I'm sure lots of people have. It can be really dangerous if a fog descends. We were extremely lucky as it was totally clear the whole day for us.

There's a weather station and a trig point and we gave the GoPro to a foreign tourist and asked her if she'd take a photo of us both together at the top. I was convinced I'd put it in photo mode but when we checked later on at the campsite, we discovered, she'd taken a video of us...hahaha. Rookie mistake I guess. We took a screenshot from it so that was fine!

WE DID IT!

There weren't that many people at the top to be honest, although there were quite a few crawling dangerously close to the edge to get a photo. I sometimes wonder how these people have managed to live this long without plummeting to their death off the side of a cliff. Stupidity definitely doesn't seem to be disappearing as time goes on.

It took us about 4 hours 20 mins to get to the summit. I would definitely recommend stopping more on the way up to make it easier! Because the terrain and the walk didn't feel too bad although all uphill, that was the mistake - we were tricked into thinking we'd be fine and just cracking on to get up to the summit as soon as possible...but obviously that's extremely difficult because the summit is so high and you are starting from sea level pretty much so climbing 1345m!

It took us around 3 and a half hours to get down. Some of that was our feet hurting and our legs slowly giving up and some was stopping to let the beagles rest and carry them part of the way because their poor little legs looked like they were giving out too! We felt really victorious though and the sun came out and mercilessly beat down on us the whole way back...so I pretty much stayed in a t-shirt all day it was so hot! The scenery on the way back down bathed in sunlight was pretty awesome, although the fact it took sooooo long to descend was really hard work.

The dogs sank into a deep slumber as soon as we got back to the campsite and slept for about 18 hours straight! We walked to a nearby pub but the midges were too bad to sit outside even being plastered in Avon Skin So Soft and it wasn't dog friendly so we ended up driving to McDonalds and having a Big Mac and chicken nuggets and stocking up on wine and beer in Morrisons, then back to the campsite and fell asleep mega early and slept right through til the next day!

We woke up the next morning to rain showers and it was really overcast. Looking out the window of our van on the campsite, we could see the path we'd walked the day before winding up the side of the mountain and loads of people still going up but were grateful we'd picked the better day of weather as doing that kind of mentally draining walk in less than optimal weather would have been soul destroying!

Gracie wondering whether we are doing an arthritis-inducing walk again today.

All in all, I was super glad we did Ben Nevis. It is a real achievement even walking up the mountain track to reach the highest point of the UK but it was one that we couldn't even really enjoy because the slog up the mountain felt soooo hard at the time. When I asked Mark what was his favourite part of our Scotland adventure, he said getting back to the van after coming down Ben Nevis! Hahaha. The views were incredible and it was a real character building experience (although when I voiced this at the time on the mountain, Mark disagreed and said it was a character-destroying experience) and it's definitely something to add to your bucket list if you like that kind of thing. There are a lot more munros I want to get up probably way less populated with just as good views so I'm not hung up on doing the "famous" mountains...this was just something we set out to do because we were in Scotland and the chances of us being back there in favourable conditions any time soon were rare. That said, we probably won't do it again for a long time - not least because Mark has ruled out going back up there for another 5 years!!!