THE STORY

We arived at the Lochy Holiday Park near Lochaber High School in Fort William to pitch our tent at 10.30 pm, the place seemed quiet so we pitched up and settled up in the morning for our two night stay.  There were four of us, Pete my flatmate, Gustav another of my flatmates, Simon Pete's brother and myself. It cost us £26.20 for our two nights' stay with a four man tent and a car.  After a few cans of Tennents and some munchies we went off to sleep ahead of an early morning start.

The early morning start never really happened and we ended up setting off in the car for the short ride to Achintee House, arriving at 10.45am.  The car park was full already and we had to settle for a parking spot on the side of the road just before the car park, in the hope that no traffic wardens would come by, which we very much doubted!

We set off up the hill and with the sun shining and all of us over dressed for the first section at least.   The first hour of the climb was easy with a gentle slope only sometimes turning steeper and even then it was nothing too strenuous for four guys in their twenties. After an hour we were at 450m according to Pete's GPS. The path was a bit rocky at times but there were lots of older people walking with sticks so it couldn't have been too tricky.  The first hour got us to about a third of the way on the map and just to where you switch back before getting to the steeper "five fingers" section.  We had gone at quite a pace for the first section and so stopped for more breaks hereafter.

Just before the five fingers we pass a waterfall which, from the other side of the valley looks treacherous but in fact its on an easy path and the only problem i could foresee with it was if it was a wet day when crossing the waterfall would have been trickier.

It was starting to get colder and on the five fingers, when walking south up the zig-zags, the wind was biting and it was a real effort to walk against it.  We fought on and after two and a quarter hours we were at 1100m and the final stretch looked fairly simple, just over that hill and up a bit!  As with this thought comes the disappointment when you get over that hill and theres still a bit more, but we managed this easy section to reach the summit of Britain in 2hours 50minutes from the car park.

At the top we found hoards of walkers trying to get their photos taken at the triangulation point and lots of people sheltering to get their lunch down them.  We were intermittently in the middle of clouds and with the wind this made it very cold.  After munching down our sandwiches and biscuits we headed down the slope back the way we came, at a fair pace.  The rocky nature of the path made this a killer for the knees and we really should have stopped for more rests to avoid injuring them.  When we reached the final stretch before the car park Pete and I broke out into a sprint, stretching our legs after five hours of slow walking, it felt great!

Dumping our plan of driving back to the campsite immediately we headed to the Ben Nevis Inn,  temptingly placed at the bottom of the hill, the boys had a pint and I had a coke seeing as I was driving and it was the best drink ever, we were all knackered.

Contributed by: stagnant but not lazy

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