Ben Nevis

Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain, rises from near sea-level to loom ominously 4409 feet (1,344 metres) above the town of Fort William, on the shores of Loch Linnhe in Lochaber. The mountain is covered in snow for around 7 months of the year and patches of snow will lie on the summit and North face well into the Summer months. In fact, the summit of ‘The Ben’ lies only a few hundred feet below the permanent snow line!

The route to the summit from Glen Nevis follows the Pony Track (often mistakenly called the Tourist Path!), built by the Victorians to allow horses to resupply the summit observatory that was manned between 1883 and 1904. As you start up the rocky path the climb begins in earnest up to the Red Burn, which flows across the path and (just about) marks the halfway point both in terms of distance and ascent. From the Red Burn the path climbs in a series of long winding zig-zags before reaching the summit plateau. On the plateau the route takes you through a mass of stones, cairns and boulders. Care and good navigation is needed here as the North Face is on your left hand side which drop dramatically 2300 feet/700 metres into the corrie below!