Big Ben...Nevis.

And so it was upon us, the final chapter of this tale of adventure. One more winter climb and we (Sam and I) would have completed our challenge first laid out in the pub on that fateful Saturday night in September. Driving up to Scotland I couldn’t quite believe how far we had come from that initial conversation when we didn’t know our ice axe from our crampons. Not only had purchased significant amounts of kit and performed huge amounts of research, but we had scaled the highest peaks of England and Wales and I could also include a handful of winter Munro’s on my list, courtesy of my winter skills course.

Driving up to Scotland I realised my true passion for this sport. The nature of mountaineering in the winter presents a series of risks but can be summarised as one: Survival. My love for winter mountaineering is centred on this basic mental state, which leaves no room for the clutter that occupies it during other times. This, along with the isolation, spectacular views and massive sense of achievement makes it easier to understand how one could become addicted to its draw.

It was great to arrive in Fort William once again. I had visited three years prior and the drive through Glencoe never fails to make my jaw drop. With two climbs under our belt we were eager to get the third underway first thing the next morning. To our disappointment the first glance of the mountain suggested a relatively low level of snowfall and we voiced our concerns that this could turn into a rather standard walk. Thankfully we were to be proved wrong.

The morning arrived soon enough and we headed out to the Glen Nevis Visitor Centre to park the car. It was a warm morning in mountaineering terms at about 4-5 degrees at 9.00am. After one hour of walking we found ourselves wishing we had not packed so many layers and were fairly convinced we would not see much snow. We set off at a record pace, a world apart from our first climb on Snowdon. I was particularly pleased as I was just getting over a cold and had been nursing a back problem and even up until the previous night had been struggling to climb even a few stairs.

After two hours of quick ascent I hit a wall. My body felt drained and at only 700 meters height I felt like I was running on empty. This hadn’t happened on the previous two climbs and I was frustrated it was happening now! I remembered feeling like this after once attending a circuit training class whilst I had a cold. The 1-hour fitness class quickly turned my cold in to flu. Lesson learnt: Don’t exercise when you’re ill! That said, I couldn’t have learnt my lesson particularly well as I was half way up the UK’s biggest mountain with not an ounce of energy left. I had totally underestimated the effect of the physical exertion would have on my, what was previously a, minor cold. We slowed the pace down and I continued to push on step by step. I broke the walk into small stages and this helped make the task more manageable.

A good while later, at approximately 1000 meters, we hit the snowline. With the snowline came the snowfall and we soon found ourselves in a complete whiteout, far from what we had envisaged, but absolutely fantastic. Up to this point I had managed to navigate the route with pinpoint accuracy but with only a couple of meters visibility it made things infinitely more difficult. In addition to this problem our reading of the map indicated a long plateau with a gentle incline to the summit. At this point we were facing one of the steepest ascents and this shattered my spirits. With some encouragement from Sam we continued one foot in front of the other but stopping every ten meters for rests.

Being unsure of our exact location the temptation was to follow others, but with a very real danger of walking off the cliff face it was a risky strategy to follow the footsteps of people you don’t know. Our calculations put us in the direction of just two sets of prints when compared with the dozens the other side. None the less we had to trust our judgement. It paid off. Within 20 minutes we had summited the UK’s biggest mountain! Completely shattered I sat down and tried to recuperate. It took about 30 minutes before I felt I was sufficiently rested to make our descent.

With next to no visibility we navigated off the plateau using a compass bearing knowing that to far left would see us off the south face and to far right would take us straight off the north face. It was a great feeling when after 30 minutes or so we rejoined the path, the hard part done I thought. But within minutes my back began to twinge shooting pain through my right leg. I couldn’t believe it. My cold had zapped my strength and now my back was in agony with every step, and there was a hell of a lot of steps to go! We continued at a painfully slow pace and in places I feared I might not be able to get of the mountain unassisted. The descent seemed endless and what should have been the easiest part turned into the hardest. I watched with disappointment as people who had summitted hours after us passed us on their way down, but I could do nothing. I continued on my downward journey and eventually made it back to the car park, feeling like a broken man.

After a very long bath and a good nights sleep my back pain simmered and I was mobile enough to walk around without problem. I thought back to yesterdays walk and was still amazed I managed to walk of the mountain myself. As we drove back down south I chuckled at the thought of telling people I conquered the mighty Ben Nevis, because from where I was standing she was in a much better state than I!