Sunday 31st May

I managed to get quite a good night's sleep before getting up at about 7.15. Lucy and I thought it was best to make an early start as we had to catch a train at 5.30pm and neither of us knew exactly how long it would take to get up and down the mountain. The youth hostel at Fort William was right at the base of the mountain so we literally came out of the front door, crossed the road and started climbing at 8am. Thankfully, the weather was unchanged from the previous day - a cloudless sky, something which we later found out only happens about 25 days a year on Ben Nevis.

Lucy all set for the 'off'

and me, wondering what the hell I've let myself in for.

I took the altimeter off the bike to give us an idea of how high we had climbed and also to see how accurate it was. We set off at 8am and by 9am it read 1500 feet - just over a third of the way. The first stage of the path was stepped but it soon turned into a stony path and we kept looking back to see the youth hostel getting smaller and smaller way down in the distance.

The first bit of snow . . .

followed by a lot more snow.


Me at the top, with even more snow.

And Lucy, surrounded by the same bit of snow.

4406 feet up in 3 hours, look at all that snow.

Another stunning view on the way back down


Ahhh, all the snow's gone.

The sort of view you normally only get from an aeroplane window.

The climb up had actually been easier than I had expected but the journey down was harder than I thought it would be. By the time we reached the bottom my knees were aching a little but nothing major. The lovely people at the hostel wouldn't allow us back in for a shower because we had already checked out. We got our revenge by raiding their fridge.
As the trip up Ben Nevis had taken less time than we thought we headed into the town for lunch before catching the 5.30 train to Glasgow. We arrived in the city at about 9pm and then cycled the two miles to Esther's where we spent a much more peaceful night than we would have had at that Glasgow Eurohostel.

The following morning we got the train to Ardrossan where we found the car un-stolen and not even up on bricks. Next stop was Wetherspoons for one last fry-up before the long drag home.