A series of photos taken during my walk up Ben Nevis.
Click on the thumbnail to see the full size image.
This page last updated 17th July 2001.
Panorama taken from the Summit Plateau, photos joined with Canon PhotoStitch.
The summit trig point can be seen at both ends of the panorama.
(As this is my first panorama, it has faults like not being quite level and having a ghost or two caused by a person moving from one frame to another during shooting)
Click on the image below to see the full size 5008 x 343, 166KB image
My Ben Nevis Walk
My walk to the top of Ben Nevis took place under good conditions, not too hot and not too cloudy. The route was the Tourist Path as this is just a strenuous walk, no climbing is necessary. It was drizzling when I set off and you could not see the summit, but this had cleared by the half-way point. The ascent took about 3.5 hours including rests. As I made my descent the clouds came down and covered the summit plateau, so I way lucky to get these pictures. The descent took 2.75 hours and was very hard on the knees! The distance from the visitor centre to the summit and back is about 10 miles. I actually walked to and from Fort William, making it about a 14 mile round trip. I took all the recommended items in the rucksack, needing both a fleece for the summit and a hat to keep the sun off, the most essential items were a litre of Lucozade sport orange, 1.5 litres of water, 3 muesli bars and 2 sandwiches! On my return to the start point a Three Peaks Challenge event was in progress, where teams will not just scale Ben Nevis, but also Scafell Pike and Snowdon all in 24 hours.
This table gives approximate timings and altitudes for the pictures
| Picture | Description | Time
from start
h:mm |
Altitude to nearest 50ft |
| Left Fort William 9:30 BST, leisurely walk to start point at Visitor Centre | |||
| BN01 | Start Point, 10:46 BST | 0:00 | 50ft |
| BN02 | Initial path towards Meall an t-Suidhe | 0:06 | 50ft |
| BN03 | Glen Nevis | 0:34 | 700ft |
| BN04 | View back to Camp Site | 0:34 | 700ft |
| BN05 | View down to Youth Hostel | 0:34 | 700ft |
| BN06 | First Aluminium Bridge | 0:46 | 1000ft |
| BN07 | Wood rail | 0:48 | 1100ft |
| BN08 | Second Aluminium Bridge | 0:51 | 1200ft |
| BN09 | Looking back rounding the hill | 1:05 | 1350ft |
| BN10 | Red Burn Waterfall | 1:09 | 1600ft |
| BN11 | Near the sharp left hand turn and steep climb | 1:09 | 1600ft |
| BN12 | Looking back from last picture | 1:10 | 1600ft |
| 5 Minute rest before sharp left hand turn | |||
| BN13 | Lochan Meall an-t-Suidhe | 1:29 | 1950ft |
| BN14 | Near the half way point | 1:29 | 2000ft |
| BN15 | Looking back over at the sharp turn | 1:36 | 2150ft |
| 10 Minute rest approx half way | |||
| BN16 | Looking back at Lochan | 1:43 | 2150ft |
| BN17 | On the first Zig-Zag | 2:02 | 2550ft |
| BN18 | Fort William Lochs Linnhe and Eil come into view | 2:14 | 2950ft |
| BN19 | View to Fort William | 2:14 | 2950ft |
| 5 Minute rest on zig-zags | |||
| BN20 | A steep climb on the last Zig-Zag | 2:48 | 3750ft |
| BN21 | Looking back from last Zig-Zag | 2:48 | 3750ft |
| BN22 | Entering snow after Zig-Zags | 2:57 | 3950ft |
| BN23 | Crossing snow | 2:57 | 3950ft |
| BN24 | Final push to summit | 3:02 | 4100ft |
| BN25 | Snow on edge | 3:12 | 4300ft |
| BN26 | Snow on edge & looking over | 3:12 | 4300ft |
| BN27 | More snow | 3:16 | 4350ft |
| BN28 | Youth Association Memorial | 3:18 | 4400ft |
| BN29 | Britain's Highest War Memorial | 3:19 | 4400ft |
| BN30 | Old Observatory | 3:19 | 4400ft |
| BN31 | Sheep on edge | 3:19 | 4400ft |
| BN32 | Myself at trig point | 3:22 | 4400ft |
| BN33 | Looking over the edge 2000ft drop | 3:23 | 4400ft |
| BN34 | GPS on Summit Trig Point Altitude 4407 ft | 3:24 | 4408ft |
| BN35 | GPS 9 Satellites Claims 13ft Accuracy | 3:24 | 4408ft |
| BN36 | Observatory again | 3:25 | 4400ft |
| 30 Minute rest on summit for lunch | |||
| BN37 | Prepare for the descent | 4:15 | 4100ft |
| 5 Minute rest near Lochan | |||
| BN38 | Youth Hostel Path junction | 6:13 | 650ft |
| 5 Minute rest at YH path junction | |||
| BN39 | Three Peaks start point | 6:31 | 200ft |
| BN40 | Three Peaks group starting out | 6:32 | 200ft |
| Back at start point 17:31 BST | 6:45 | ||
| Back at Fort William 18:15 BST | |||
The GPS
I took my Garmin eTrex GPS (the yellow one) on my journey. Beforehand I had plotted a course of waypoints into the GPS using GPSU, but this was not really needed as the path was easy to follow. This is the green line on the image below. Afterwards, I downloaded the track from the GPS to GPSU to get the blue line on the image below and used this to work out the approx altitudes of the photos by matching timestamps from the camera to the GPS track, the photo points are the 'BN' numbers which are just visible on the track. This GPS track was originally superimposed on a map, but I cannot include the map here for copyright reasons. The inaccuracies in the GPS can be seen in the early stages of the journey where some satellite coverage was obscured by the mountains, blue crosses indicate where the signal was re-gained and there are a few rogue points. You can also see the shortcut over the patch of snow which took me away from the zig-zag of the green line.
The GPS is useful but cannot be fully relied upon, you still need a map and compass.
This is just an example of what can be done, it is not meant as a substitue for an OS map!
Green Line - Projected route
Blue Line - My actual track
Red Points - GPS Waypoints
BN01 etc - Photo points
Useful Publications
'Ben Nevis, Walking the Ben Path from June to September', The Highland
Council, about 35p from the Visitor Centre.
'Ben Nevis & Glen Nevis', Map, 4 inches to 1 mile, Alan McKenzie,
about £2.50 from the Visitor Centre.
Ordnance Survey Outdoor Leisure 38,'Ben Nevis & Glen Coe', Map,
1:25000, about £5.50.
'Introducing Ben Nevis', ISBN 1 872825 03 6, for some excellent photographs.
Useful Links
http://www.fort-william.net/ben-nevis/
- The Ben Nevis page on the Fort William and Lochaber Online Site, all
you need to know about the mountain.
http://www.miltonhotels.com/
- I can recommend the Alexandra Hotel in Fort William for value and comfort.
http://www.gpsu.co.uk/ - If you
have a GPS you'll probably already know about this excellent software.
First set of Scotland Pictures
