A good friend of mine from the Rambling club had hired a very comfortable four bedroomed cabin in Glen Nevis for the Easter Break in 1980 and invited myself and wife to be to join them, an offer I could not refuse.

As well as doing the touristy things the highlight of the trip was the assent of Ben Nevis at 4,035ft the highest mountain in the British Isles from our base in Glen Nevis. 

It was a grey and cloudy morning on the day of our walk, the weather forecast looked good but we knew there was a lot of snow above 3,000ft, and the temperature on the summit would be below freezing, so we made sure we had packed all our winter gear.

We set of at 9.00am from the side of the Youth Hostel in Glen Nevis, it was a tough steep climb to reach the ‘Tourist Track’ but it saved us the long haul from the usual starting point at Achintee Farm. The views looking up Glen Nevis from the ‘main’ track were superb, the snow line quite visible in the distance. Once you got into the rhythm and round the corner of Meall an Suidhe the walk up to the saddle and half way point at Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe at around 1,700ft was reasonably comfortable.  To this point the walk was on a moorland grass heavily eroded by the footfall leaving bare patches of stone and rock. Looking ahead of us you could see our route zig zagging ahead of us. We continued the slow laborious trek upwards, at times I remember feeling that my lungs were going to explode, but after a short rest and my breathing restored to normality I continued upward following the zig zags.  As we continued the path became all stone and slippery rock and care was needed in case you slipped on the greasy surface. As we came to the end of the zig zags the path opened up into a huge rocky landscape, rolling mist kept drifting across, obliterating our view of the summit, but looking back down the valley the views were quite spectacular as were the view over to the right of us making out the summits of the peaks in the far distance. A little higher and we reached snow, fortunately it wasn’t to bad to walk on and not to icy to cause any major issues, although we all had good boots and ice axes with us so it wasn’t really a problem. We could quite clearly see out route ahead of us and continued to the summit. The summit is quite huge, no pinnacled peak just flat. The mist unfortunately had rolled in and the views from the top were zero. We stopped by the shelter which was just about level with us and had a cup of cool flasked coffee. In the spring time once the snow has thawed out the shelter stands a good ten foot or so above your head! We stayed on the Summit for a good thirty minutes before we started our descent. It wasn’t until we walked of the summit plateau that the mist cleared and we could see the sun shining below us. A couple of the lads in the party took their’ cas bags’ out of their rucksacks and used them as a sledge, steering with their ice axe as they carefully slid down the snowy slopes stopping once or twice until they reached the Saddle. We followed the same route down as we did going up. I remember quite vividly the strain on your knees which was quite uncomfortable and I’m sure at times it felt easier climbing up than coming down. We eventually arrived back at the villa some seven hours after setting off. A great walk with good company. Happy memories.