Day 5 - Ben Nevis

We began trudging along the path up Ben Nevis.

We continued to trudge...

and then trudged some more.

After much trudging we finally reached the summit.

And then came the long trudge back down.

Today we set out to make the 1344m climb to the summit of Ben Nevis. Having been woken much before the crack of dawn and loaded our kit into the land rover. We arrived at the bottom of Ben Nevis as the first daylight began to show and made our way through the rain to the footpath that would take us to the highest point in the UK. Two and a half hours into our trek the rain was falling upwards and we came across the first snow and ice patches. By this point the wind had picked up and the temperatures had dropped, causing the whole experience to feel silghtly more hardcore. As we continued the snow became thicker and we got out our ice axes before heading on up. The path zigged, zagged and then zigged once more before straightening out and disappearing altogether. The ground had leveled out a little and we now had to navigate our way along a line of cairns protrudng from the snow in near white-out conditions. We successfully reached the summit and enjoyed several minutes of triumph before the cold set in once more. we then quickly shivered our way back past the cairns and down the mountin away from the snow, ice and wind. Several sandwiches and caramel bars later we were back at the bottom of the mountain, we had won!
Us one; Nevis nil.

Matt Andrews (VI Form)