Day 72: Ben Nevis, You Can't Have Us

The second half of Owen's visit, we traveled to the Highlands for a backpacking trip. It was so effing awesome, it gets to be separated by days.

Thursday, March 14th

We took a train to to Fort William, referred to sometimes as the outdoor capital of the UK. At the train station, we asked around for directions and got ourselves to the main part of town, which had loads of outdoor shops; Owen and I were in heaven. At one, we talked to a worker about doing Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK and conveniently located right near the hostel we were staying at that night. The guy told us we needed crampons and an ice ax to do it (which we didn't have) but that we could rent all that from them (which we didn't want to pay for). We left somewhat disappointed but just told ourselves that we would simply walk up the mountain as high as we could until we felt we needed crampons, at which point we'd turn back.

The rest of the day, we walked around the ruins of a castle and then to our bunkhouse, which was a few miles outside of town. It's bizarre at first traveling around without a car- anything even a few miles away takes effort to get to if on foot, but it feels way more exciting when you finally arrive. So when we got to our bunkhouse after miles of walking on a quiet dirt road, we were euphoric. We dropped our bags off and checked out the bottom portion of the trail leading up to Ben Nevis. The trail seemed innocent enough, but the upper portion of Ben was covered in snow (!!!)

                

         

That night, we ate dinner at the bunkhouse- the BEST hamburger I have ever had (can you tell I was hungry?) and then went to bed at 8pm! We didn't really plan it, we kind of just sat down on the bed and then crashed immediately.

Ben Nevis Inn and Bunkhouse

Friday, March 15th

This was the big day- our attempt of Ben Nevis! Conditions were rather Scottish- meaning grey skies and alternating between spitting on us and downpouring- but we pushed on. Still very early in the morning, before we hit the snow line, we passed one guy walking back down (did he reach the summit? he didn't have that much gear on... no crampons?) I didn't actually ask him any of these things, though looking back I should have. I'll call him Loner, since he didn't make conversation with us and he was alone.

By the time we saw another person, we were in the snow. Oh, and it was snowing. There was a lot of it on the ground, but we could still make out the path and it wasn't icy so we had decided it was safe enough for the time being. But this next guy, Orange Jacket as I like to refer to him, gave us reason to worry. He said he had made it up a few hundred feet higher but had to turn back, as he couldn't find the path anymore and didn't have crampons or an ice ax to bail him out in case he got in trouble. Shit. We didn't have that stuff either... And he said that he had been following one guy's footprints (Loner's? Did Loner really get that far up?)

We continued up, with a new goal of reaching the point where Orange Jacket had turned around. Well, we actually safely made it past that, until we were following only one set of footprints. And with the snow quickly falling, these footprints were becoming harder and harder to follow. Finally, when we looked around us and realized it was a total whiteout- we couldn't see more than 5 feet ahead, we realized we had no option but to turn around. In our guidebook, it said "In some places the path is very close to the cliffs and if there is snow on the ground and bright mist, the edge can be almost impossible to see." Too eerily similar to what we were in to go on, not knowing where the edge was.

So we took a video and a picture at our turn around point, then started back down, taking caution to never veer from our footprints up. Soon, we met up with a group of three guys- Bruce and Sons (actual name changed, well actual name not known so Owen decided he seemed like a Bruce). Bruce was in his 40's, from Yorkshire, with his two sons, in their mid-20's. Bruce was jumping for joy when he saw us- he said he had wanted to turn back down for awhile as he felt the mountain was becoming unsafe, but his sons hadn't let him. So he joined up with us on our descent, while the Sons continued up after we warned them about the whiteout and the ambiguous trail.

Bruce was a hilarious guy, and told us all about his job, his family, and his opinion on David Cameron, current prime minister of the UK (you can guess what that was). Before we parted ways, the three of us promised that one day we would make it all the way up Ben Nevis. We also saw Orange Jacket in the parking lot, and regretfully told him we hadn't made it up either, and both wished each other best of luck.

Evidence that the sun does still exist in Scotland!

As soon as we got back to the bunkhouse, the skies cleared and the sun came out. Go figure. I took some pictures for awhile while Owen relaxed inside, but we still had plenty of daylight hours left so eventually we decided to see if there were any other sources of food in the area (aka restaurants). Eventually we found a place for dinner off the side of a country road. We were the only customers there, besides what seemed to be part of the family gathered round at a nearby table. Once our food came, the rest of the family sat down and all ate! What a cute place.

That night, using men's body wash and a large blue towel that we found abandoned on a bunk, I took a HOT shower. And there was a drying room that we were able to use to dry all our clothes that were soaked from the day. Damn I loved that bunkhouse.

Later, Owen presented an idea to me: instead of taking a bus early tomorrow morning to the next town we had planned to visit, we stay in Fort William most of the day and attempt Ben Nevis again, but only if the weather looked good. I'll be honest, my first thought was hell, no. I was exhausted mentally and physically, and Ben Nevis had, and still did scare me. So we went to bed still undecided about it.

Saturday, March 16th

I woke up to Owen's pleas to look outside at the clear skies and sun. After lots of grumbling, I got out of bed and took a peak outside- not a cloud in the sky. Looks like we were going to give Ben a second shot!

View on the way up

This time, the first hour or two we weren't getting poured on, and though our bodies were sore from yesterday, I felt a new sense of optimism. When we hit the snow line, we knew what to expect. I was so tired though, I started chanting "left, left, left right left" in my head to make myself keep going. Later on, I found out that Owen had been chanting "raviolis and a nap," a phrase he heard from a comedian. Ha! I will admit, today was icier than yesterday, but we went slowly and carefully. Shortly after we passed our turnaround point from yesterday, on an icy, steeply sloped path near the edge of a cliff, I had a breakdown. I told Owen that it was too icy, we needed crampons, we could so easily fall off the edge... Owen helped calm me down and said it was fine, we could turn around. But after a few minutes I was feeling slightly better so we decided to keep going.

My WTF face

But then we lost the path. Surprise, surprise. Lucky for us, two men were coming up not too far behind us so we waited for them and then trying to not sound panicky we asked where they thought the trail went. Leader, as I'll refer to him (I never quite caught his name), found the path right away, so we followed him and his friend Sean. They were both in their 50's I would guess, Leader from Scotland and Sean from Ireland. My guess is that it was Leader's idea to do Ben Nevis, as he seemed super prepared and knowledgeable about the ascent. Man, we were lucky.

So close, yet so far from the summit

Apparently, there were 30 or so cairns (piles of rock) that you were supposed to follow to get to the summit without falling off the edge. At some points, the mountain was only 100 feet wide. Thank god we knew about the cairns, as the clouds were rolling in and it was getting difficult to see more than a few feet in front of us, just like yesterday. Once we hit the cairns, we could see the summit but we still had a long ways to go, and we were both feeling hungry and weary. Oh, and we had nearly ran out of the food we brought with us; we had even eaten what was supposed to be our celebratory summit KitKat. At one point, Owen turned back to me and hissed "if they offer you any food, take it!" I guess he was even hungrier than I was. Leader did offer us a chocolate bar that we gratefully took and scarfed down.

Finally, finally, finally WE REACHED THE TOP! 4409 feet. We made it. And we took a video to prove it:

The obligatory summit photo

Emergency shelter at the summit

There's not much else you can do on a mountain top, plus the weather seemed to be quickly closing in on us, so we hastily headed back down. Downhill, in the deep snow, you could run/skate down with little effort, and it was really fun! We passed  tons of people coming up, probably around 30 today. All the people, some who looked far less prepared than us, made me feel much safer than yesterday when we were only two of seven people to attempt the mountain.

The whole thing took us a little over 7 hours. I have never been happier to walk on flat ground, with no snow, and not need to worry about falling of a cliff. As soon as we made it into the bunkhouse, we ordered soup with "extra" bread, emphasis on the extra, you heard us say extra right? We were so freaking desperate for food. At one point, I think I was eating butter straight out of the pack.

Leader and Shawn, life-savers those two, offered us a ride back into town after they heard that we were going to walk there to catch a bus. So we were saved a three or four mile hike because of their generosity!

We took a short bus ride to Glencoe, a town about 20 miles away from Fort William. We arrived in the dark, pretty disoriented, and had no idea really where our campsite was, but after asking at a hotel, we found our campground. We were supposed to stay in our tent, but when we checked in with the owners and they saw the drizzle outside and our soaked clothes, they let us have a vacant Hobbit House. A Hobbit House is the most magical thing in the world, let me tell you. I guess it relates to Lord of the Rings, who knows, I'm not into that; all I know is I nearly cried when we got inside it. All it had was a bed, a heater, a fridge, a microwave, and a tv but that was everything we needed.

The lovely abode

Strange but awesome!

Later that night, we wandered out and found somewhere to eat, and then took showers- Owen had thoughtfully snagged the towel and body wash from the bunkhouse. Living the high life!

Taken right in front of our campground!

Sunday, March 17th

I am somewhat ashamed to admit we didn't wake up til after 12pm... Let's just say today was a recovery day. Hiking was out of the question, as we were both really feeling the last two days, so we roamed around the town and saw everything for the first time in daylight. The town was so small that we recognized half the people we saw from the restaurant the night before!

As tired as we were, it was St. Patrick's Day, so we bought some drinks and snacks from a little grocery store we found and celebrated back in the Hobbit House. We even watched tv! Today was exactly what we both needed.

Monday and Beyond

Today we got the earliest bus back into Fort William, which was apparently a tad too early because nothing was open! We were starving, and nearly dove into the first cafe that opened. Later, we each bought Ben Nevis patches to sew onto our packs, from none other than the store that had told us the first day that we couldn't do Ben unless we had crampons and ice axes. Well look at us! After that, we took a 5 hour train back home, and in a daze made it back to my flat.

Owen left early the next morning, and since then I have to admit I've been a little lonely without him. But my mom and sister are visiting a week from today, so I'm looking forward to that!