Vivek Roy

Ben Nevis. The highest mountain in the British Isles. AllTrails says it’s a hard one. It reminds me of the scene in the show “Chernobyl” when they discovered that the maximum rating on Geiger counters of Diatlov and others who were onsite is 3.6 roentgens per hour but the actual reading was likely to be much much higher. The “Hard” rating for “Ben Nevis” in AllTrails is exactly that. It is more than hard, it is extremely hard. And Scottish weather does not help.

After you have managed to find parking (which was tricky), you can head for the climb.

The first part of the climb is steps. So many steps. The steps were extremely gruelling. 

After climbing for good part of two hours, you’d finally see the signs of the loch.

The hike until then was gruelling but the sight was worth it. And then you keep climbing. The steps disappear for a moment giving the much needed relief.

And then some more really steep climbing. By steep climbing I mean the kind where you want to give up and turn around. I should have done that.

And then you hit the first “checkpoint” on AllTrails: a kind of waterfall.

And then you keep climbing. But soon, it got cold. At this point, I realized everything is wet. Waterproof clothes weren’t as waterproof as I thought they were.

It becomes tough at this point. There is still almost half the climb left. Steps give way to stone paths. It’s not a scramble but it’s tiring.

As soon as we got up beyond the ice point, it started pouring down. Rain is ice at that point. 

My wife and I decided to turn around. The others wanted to finish the climb so they continued on.

On the way down, near the loch, my legs seized up. And it was painful enough that I just wanted to cry. I somehow made the climb down aided by my wife. It was tough.

But this video, even though it barely captures the awesomeness, is something that will make us want to do it again.