just like running a marathon, if you have never hiked before I would recommend getting some practice in before attempting Ben Nevis. Unfortunately for me, being in my 50's and on my knees most of my working life, (not what your thinking - get you head out of the gutter ;-) ) and after a 2 week stay in hospital last year with pneumonia, I still set out with the intention of reaching the top.
I must of only been 1/8th of the way up when it dawned on me that this is going to kill my knees and I would suffer from the attempt. It wasn't so much the hike but navigating the boulders that has been used to create a half decent path, and whoever got those up there, fair play.
The views are absolutely amazing, and it wasn't long that I was running out of steam, and I was stopping a far amount, I think most people on there today was having the same issues, and it was funny criss-crossing each other as we all made our ascent.
About a third of the way up I saw a camping neighbour who has this massive fluffy puppy, his owner said that she walks him up there as there is a big Loch that he swims in, and that they do this daily. WTF I thought - daily are you nuts. I managed to get a lovely pic of him on the mounting, it'll in the gallery be below.
So after looking at the lake I managed to reach the waterfall at Big Burn, my only thought as to the reason behind naming it that was that the back of your legs would be burning. Big Burn is the half way point and it took me 30minutes longer than what was estimated for a novice.
I tried to soldier on and made it a few bends up before I started to get a bit of a headache, which given my health, I recon it might be the start of altitude sickness, so I stopped and ate and drank some more.
Once I got my breath back and had stopped sweating the weather started to change and on went the thermal top, and I started my descent.
No I didn't make it to the top, but I did get past half way, so for me that was a win, and thankfully I had very good weather to accomplish what I had. I will say this, that if it was raining I would not have even attempted it, as most of the rock path was slippery, and the scariest bit was yet to come, and that was the hike back down.
Before I reached Big Burn, a chap I was was chatting with on the way up, was continuing to the top, and his mum, kids and pregnant wife, yes I said pregnant, who is 4 months gone, had already started their way back down. That's amazing.
Although I thought it was cool to see so many dogs making their way down from the summit, I personally thought it to be a little bit irresponsible, one slip and one could break ones ankle, and when you compare a humans ankle to a dogs, ours are bigger, okay they have 4 legs but the slightest slip and I could not bear the thought of that for any of the dogs I have owned. But that's me.
I mangled to track my whole hike and the image will be in the gallery below, I took a lot of pictures which will be in the gallery below. Due to lack of decent tinternet here I can't upload the video's I took but if you subscribe to my newsletter when I upload them to YouTube, I email out.
Would I attempt to get to the summit again.....
In one breath I would have liked to see if I could after getting in some decent training, I mean people were running up and down - Nutters!!! If I'm honest I got as far as I was comfortable with, I have not been the hikey type of person and the strain on ones joints, let alone ones heart, is enough for one to take stock of what an old fart can do.
But still I'm pleased I got past halfway mark, and you can see that in my track log, I reached 721m and the summit is at 1345m, and if you good at maths you see I got 97m higher than the half way point. Yay!!!
