Conquering Ben Nevis

For our second bank holiday in May, we decided to head up to Scotland to hike Ben Nevis.  

Ben Nevis is the tallest mountain in the UK at just over 1,300 meters.  I didn’t think that Ben Nevis would be that big of a deal because Mt Franklin in El Paso is almost 2,200 meters and I did that when I was a really unfit freshman in high school.  But it was a big deal!  And I think that the reason for that is mostly due to the weather conditions in Northern Scotland.  The only thing we ever had to worry about while hiking in TX was bringing enough water and sunscreen, but climbing in Scotland requires a lot more preparation!

We invited a bunch of our friends to join us, and the Tarts, Jordan, Laura, and her boyfriend, Alex, were able to come along!  Laura and Alex live in Scotland, so they met us on Saturday afternoon.

We met Jordan, Paul, and Alyson at Heathrow on Friday after work.  Poor Alyson had just returned from a business trip to Istanbul that afternoon, so she spent all day flying and hanging out in airports.  And unfortunately for us, but especially for her, our flight was delayed several hours because of the plane that caught fire and had to make an emergency landing at Heathrow earlier in the day.

We finally landed in Glasgow at 1:00 AM and were so thankful that we hadn’t booked the rental car or our hotel in the highlands until the following day.  We had planned to just spend the night at the Holiday Inn Express next to the Glasgow airport before getting on the road Saturday morning.  That was some good planning on our part!

After breakfast, we were off to the highlands! 

The highlands are so, so beautiful.  It’s hard to capture just how amazing the scenery is in photos, but we tried.  Saturday was a perfect day with clear blue skies and warm temperatures.  We drove past Loch Lomond, the largest Scottish loch, on the way up north and were amazed by how blue the water was and the gorgeous mountains surrounding the lake.

Our hotel was in Glencoe, which is another stunning area of the highlands.

Three Sisters of Glencoe

The misty view of the loch on Sunday morning from our family room that we shared with Laura and Alex. 

Driving back on Monday afternoon, it was raining and it was amazing to see how much the landscape changes with the weather.  Where the land had been dry and green just a couple of days earlier, there were now dozens of roaring waterfalls cascading down the mist-covered mountains.

On Saturday afternoon we drove up the scenic A82 highway (which I mispronounced once and no one let me live down the rest of the trip) to Loch Ness to try and spot Nessie.  Loch Ness is the second-largest lake in Scotland but the largest by volume.  It holds more freshwater than all of the lakes in England and Wales combined.   Unfortunately Nessie didn’t want to come out and say hi, but we did get to tour Urquhart Castle on the shores of the loch. 

We met up with Laura and Alex on the drive back to Glencoe, and had dinner before turning in early to get plenty of rest before the big hike!

The sun starting to set around 10 PM near Ft. William

Alyson and I both write blogs and Jordan is in love with his Go-Pro, which takes amazing videos, so the hike was well-documented.  After our fifth stop in the first 20 minutes, Alex and Laura were probably thinking 'What have we gotten ourselves into?!  This is going to take 13 hours at this pace!' But I'm glad we have the photos and videos because they are beautiful and hilarious!

Great photo-bomb by Paul!

So much energy at the start!

On the way back down, it started to drizzle and it made this path much more slippery and hazardous!

It got a bit chilly near the top but Alex was prepared!

The waterfall where we could fill up our water bottles with fresh, ice-cold, mountain water

By now our legs were starting to ache a little...

... but when I saw literally everyone and their dog (including this cute little guy called Fred) climbing the mountain, I didn't feel as tired and kept on trekking!

We did NOT expect that much snow at the top.  Those towers of rocks are there to keep people from getting too close to the north face.  When it's that foggy and wet, there are accidents.

And there it is - the sheer drop off the north face

David, get away from there!

This is probably my favorite video of the day.  It wasn't until I got to the top of Ben Nevis that I wiped out!  Good thing Jordan was there to face-plant into, and he just happened to have the camera rolling...  And at the end of the video, you'll notice Jordan gets a little confused and calls World Sherry Day, 'World Sharing Day.'  Mark the date - May 26th is now officially World Sharing Day!

This video may trump the summit!  Paul collides with poor Jordan, and they both have to hobble down the rest of the mountain. ;)

After 8 hours, we had conquered Ben Nevis and it was time to celebrate at the pub at the bottom of the mountain, aptly named the Ben Nevis Pub.  We had lots of beers, ciders, and WATER!  David and Jordan couldn’t resist the Scottish beef steaks (Scottish beef is sooo much better than British beef) while the others somehow had lamb.  After all of the cute lambs and cows we saw on the hike, I had to go with the vegetarian haggis.  I didn’t even know that was a thing, but there was no way I was trying real haggis (heart, liver, and lungs encased in a sheep stomach).

Poor little baby lambs

This cow deserves to be eaten after sticking his tongue out at us!  

My veggie haggis was drowning in whisky cream sauce.  Ohmygosh, that cream sauce must’ve had about two sticks of butter and at least a cup of heavy cream in it… good thing I had just burned like 1,200 calories hiking or I would’ve felt really guilty for mopping up my plate with fries!

After dragging our sore bodies out of bed the next day, we said goodbye to Laura and Alex and headed back toward Glasgow for our evening flight.  But before leaving Scotland, we had to stop at a Scotch whisky distillery.

David and the guys had done some research beforehand and found a distillery nestled in the hills near a picturesque waterfall called Glengoyne.  The guys all enjoyed their scotch, while Alyson and I just enjoyed the tour.  I cannot handle scotch – it’s like drinking rubbing alcohol to me.  Every time I go on one of these tours, I think I might change my mind after hearing the descriptions of the flavors – crème brulee and Christmas pudding, or light and fragrant like wildflowers growing in the Scottish isles… Nope, still tastes like rubbing alcohol.

I wanted all of the guys to enjoy the tour and their scotch, so Jordan, our designated driver (again!), passed over the keys to me so I could drive us to the Glasgow Airport after the tour and lunch.

I have to admit, I was terrified for that 40 minute drive.  It’s hard to explain, but driving on the right side of the car, I wanted the same vantage point as driving on the left in America, so I was definitely hugging the left side of the road instead of staying more towards the middle, or right.  Make sense?  Think that sentence was confusing, try driving around a roundabout with four lanes of traffic!  But after hitting only one curb, I got the hang of it.  We had Jordan watching out for cars on the right, while David and Paul were my ‘curb-checkers’ on the left.  And Alyson helped with directions and speed limit signs, while also playing DJ.  I could not have done it without all of my back-seat drivers!  I can now check ‘Driving on the Left Side of the Road’ off of my bucket list! :)

And I can check Loch Ness and Ben Nevis off of my list of ‘things to do before we leave the UK.’  Only about 20 more excursions to go and then we can head back to America!