Ben Nevis expedition report

It all began at 5am on Friday the 11^th. Eleven of us young people (well ten anyway) began to make our way to Dublin airport, where we caught flight EI222 to Glasgow. On reaching Glasgow our travel was by no means over as we faced a further four-hour train journey to take us deep into the Scottish Highlands. It was late afternoon by the time we reached our destination, Fort William and the remainder of the day was spent renting gear, buying food and setting up camp.

Friday night was cold and we awoke to find that it had been snowing overnight. Never the less the excitement and anticipation of the adventure that was sure to follow made it easy for us to get out of the tents and get organised. It took about an hour before we were on our way. Everyone was well wrapped up with enough "Lowe Alpine" gear to supply a chain of small shops.

The foot of Ben Nevis was about 4Km from the campsite, which took about 45 minutes to walk. On arrival at the foot of the mountain it was apparent that conditions were going to be difficult, as the snow line was almost down at road level.

We glanced over our maps and plotted out our planned route to the 4480" summit, and with out further hesitation we set off. We were alarmed to find that the climb was tough right from the very beginning. It took about half an hour before we were completely surrounded by snow and ice, which for a while was a great novelty. We continued to climb and three hours later we had reached Lachan Meall an t-Suidhe, where we stopped for some lunch and rested a while. Four members of the group decided to stay here and set up camp in shelter tents, while the remaining seven pressed on determined to achieve their goal.

We were further reminded of the difficulty of our task when meet a group of experienced climbers descending off the mountain, complaining that the snow was too soft. Indeed the snow was soft and in some places it was up waist level, which made our progress up the mountain slow and strenuous. We continued to climb and two hours later we had climbed to 3400" (height of Carrauntoohil).

The weather began to take a turn for the worst and the snow became deeper. We continued making slow progress, trying to cover ourselves from freezing snow, which was now beating us from every direction. The path we were following became difficult to make out as the mountain became featureless under a thick blanket of white snow. A half an hour later we had climbed to 3600". The conditions now were almost unbearable. Gael force winds brought the temperature down to -13 degrees Celsius. I was startled to find that my jacket had become frozen in places and our sunglasses had frozen up. The snow underneath us had turned to ice and the crampons and ice axes we hired were in full use.

We came across another group of climbers huddled together hoping to bear out the storm and make a dash to the summit. After a brief discussion we decided to continue hoping that the weather would calm down. The weather didn't calm down. In fact it got worse. It became impossible to make out the path. In fact we could only see a couple of feet in front of us. We were now suituated at a particaly dangerous part of the mountain, to our right was the north cliff face of Ben Nevis and to our left was the notorious Five Finger Gully. Both cliff faces claim lives every year and a short walk off course in either direction could lead us to either.

We stopped climbing and surveyed our position. After a short debate it was decided that the risks were becoming too great and with time running out. We made the difficult decision to abandon our accent of Ben Nevis. We had reached a height of 3800" only 600" away from our goal.

Our adventure was by no means over as we still had to descend off the mountain. Given the blizzard conditions this would not be straightforward. We put on are harnesses, roped up together, and were led down below the storm by expedition leader Liam (Murray). When we had descended to calmer weather we took off our harnesses, put the rope away and continued along the grueling descent feeling down hearted not having reached the top. However our sprits were lifted when a brief clear spell gave us a glimpse of the spectacular Scottish Highlands.

We returned to our campsite just after dark and fell into our tents feeling a strange mix of disappointment while at the same time being trilled by the whole experience.

The 3rd Monaghan Venturer Scout Ben Nevis expedition team were; Colm O'Hagan, Liam Murray, Gene Woods, Barry Cunningham, Sean McKevitt, Marianne McEneaney, Edel O'Hagan, Kevin Cunningham, Dane Mc Mahon, David Hand and Justin McNally.

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