My Ben Nevis Memory

The Memory

Ever had one of those experiences that just never leaves you? Well that’s exactly what Ben Nevis did to me back in 2010. It’s something that I often think back on with great happiness.

Why We Climbed Ben Nevis

My younger cousin was involved in an accident outside her home with a car losing control and smashing into her and crushing her in between the car and her own parked car. She suffered horrendous injuries to her leg and required lots of surgery and a skin graft.

Anyway, the hospital and surgeons did incredible work and pretty much saved her leg. She’s now doing really well.

After the surgery and all clear I decided to do a charity walk up Ben Nevis. I recruited around 20 people to do it with.

Training on Ben Lomond

I had heard a lot about Ben Nevis and was pretty excited for the adventure. We did a few hills to get ourselves ready, in particular Ben Lomond! Ah, Ben Lomond! Climbing up Ben Lomond was actually lovely and we did it several times, but on one of the days coming down with my wife, something clicked in my knee! Since then I’ve had constant issues and struggle with just basic squats!

The Climb Begins

So Ben Nevis day arrived, I organised a bus to take our squad down and back.

We set off and agreed we’ll meet at the top. The walk up was really nice, we lost a few elderly members on the way up, they could not manage so bailed back to the bus.

When the Weather Changed

This is the bit that really jogs my memory. It was quite a nice day, no rain, bit cloudy but visibility was great. Well, that was until we got to a certain point then suddenly there were bits of cloud right in front of our face. It was so strange, we kept walking and next minute the visibility dropped to pretty much zero! It was the craziest thing. The ground at this point had also turned to snow, it was like stepping into another place. It was just a crazy feeling.

Zero Visibility

So we kept going and ended up with a bunch of random walkers as the visibility was at zero so we kind of all stuck with each other, I suppose safety in numbers. We all mostly just went by sound, we heard people shout "up here!" and we began following the voices.

I had never experienced anything like this, it felt like something I’d watched in a movie, I had never been in a situation with next to zero visibility. At points we gained some visibility as the clouds moved around, we began seeing shadows of other people making their way up. The whole thing was honestly mind blowing for me.

The Summit

So we got to the top! Ya dancer! Wow it was worth it, it was great to complete such an achievement, mind you, we could see fuck all but the feeling of getting to the top was just wow and the whole thing with zero visibility just wasn’t processing with me! It was just an amazing time to be alive.

The Near Disaster

We heard one lad say to keep our wits about us due to the edges as you can’t see them, I didn’t pay much attention really. But a lad I worked with at the time, Allan. He was walking around and I came across him standing, taking pictures. I’m not sure what the hell he was taking pictures of as we couldn’t see anything. But he was slowly walking forward and I noticed something really dark and pretty big on the ground and he was walking forward to it with his phone up trying to get snaps of something. I couldn’t process this big dark thing, I couldn’t see the fucking thing! I pulled on Allan’s backpack to stop him walking forward. It turns out he was ready for walking off the side of Nevis! We had some cloud movement that revealed what that darkness was, a plunge to death! I’ll attach a photo of this below.

Heading Back Down

So, we all got our photos with the little cabin thing at the top and began our journey back down as a group to start with.

As we got off the peak, there was a gap in the clouds and we noticed a massive smooth downhill patch of snow. So most of our group took the time to run and fall to the ground turning ourselves into human sledges! It was really fun! We had such a blast.

The Final Stretch

Going back down was much harder than going up, I was feeling every pound on my bad knee I got from Ben Lomond. My knee was pretty much fucked. I ended up wondering how the hell I’m going to make it back, I wanted the pain to stop, I wanted the walk over. So I was pretty slow at this point. My wife stuck by me.

We made it back to the bus, such relief. I was so happy to be resting my knee.

Looking Back

To this day, I look back so fondly on Ben Nevis! I completed her! She was wonderful and left me with such deep memories. That whole cloud and zero visibility was just a thing of beauty.

If you are reading this and have wanted to take a shot at Ben Nevis, absolutely do it! She is just wonderful and it’s such a wild experience.

Anyways, we raised a few thousand quick and donated this to the hospital to say thanks for the work they did. Along with that, we all completed a massive task and have it stored in memory hopefully for many years to come.

I’ve added some photos below along with a video. I actually had to convert the video as it was from the old mobile format, 3GP!! Man, the good old days back then!

Catch ye in the next one.