Ben Nevis: Rab McNeil's Scottish icons

You knew this already? Well, to be candid with you, I’m not really a mountain person. I like them fine enough, but believe them best appreciated from below. What do we do with challenges, readers? Correct: we shirk them.

Unfortunately, up to 125,000 people a year dare themselves to climb or hike up The Ben, as locals call it (never Nevvo). Come to think of it, I have been part of the way up, on some sort of “gondola” like a ski chair, not voluntarily of course but in the line of duty, following a fatality on the slopes.

In those days, I was a “colour writer”, with a licence to write news containing adjectives. I think I described the peak as “cauld and right high, ken?”

And so it is. Height first: reading six authoritative sources about Britain’s highest mountain, you’ll get seven estimates of its height. Suffice to say, it was properly measured with a right good ruler by Ordnance Survey in 2016, and they said it was 4,411ft.

Cauld? Aye. The average winter temperature is supposedly around −5C, and the mean monthly temperature −0.5C. Mind you, these measurements were taken yonks ago. Who knows what effect climate change has had.

In an average year the summit sees 261 gales. In addition, it’s the west Highlands so the heavens forever micturate, and the frequently cold, cloudy and changeable conditions can catastrophically discombobulate the ill-prepared. But still up they blunder, sometimes, as recently reported, in stilettos or trainers.

I better tell you more specifically where it is, in case you’re looking for a lofty peak upon which to park your piano. Ben Nevis sits in magisterial splendour at the head of Loch Linnhe, beside the town of Fort William, in Lochaber.

You say: “Aye, but how did it get its name, like?” Good question. Again: six sources, seven answers. Being far too busy for deep etymology, all I can tell you is the Ben is from Gaelic Beinn – mountain. Nevis is supposedly from Nibheis, but nobody really has a scoobie. It could mean “cloudy mountain”, “mountain of heaven” or “venomous mountain”. Suppose it depends how you get on in your stilettos.

You’ll be wanting to hear about the geology (chorus: “Naw!”). Briefly, then, off the top of my head I think there’s evidence of dark basaltic lavas and also igneous rock from the Devonian period – picture it, if you will – encroaching on the metamorphic schists.

The backstory is that the beastie was formed by a volcano giving it large 350 million years ago. According to eye-witnesses, this collapsed in on itself creating an explosion comparable to the Minoan eruption of 1600 BC or Krakatoa in 1883.

The first recorded ascent was made in 1771 by James Robertson, an Edinburgh botanist collecting specimens. Three years later, one John Williams, in pursuit of minerals of commercial value (fortunately, finding none), provided the first account of the mountain's geological structure. John Keats waddled up in 1818, comparing the ascent to “mounting ten St. Pauls without the convenience of a staircase”. In 1889, William MacGillivray, later a distinguished naturalist, got to the top, where he found "fragments of earthen and glass ware, chicken bones, corks, and bits of paper". Plus ça change.

Somebody mentioned an observatory earlier, and the ruined walls of this still stand aboot on the summit. It was constructed in 1883 by a local contractor (after whom McLean’s Steep, last rise to the summit, is named), along with a hoofpath for ponies to bring up supplies.

The path and observatory increased the Ben’s popularity, particularly after the West Highland Railway came to F. William in 1894. Interestingly, or indeed otherwise, several proposals were made for a rack railway to the summit, but these hit the buffers. Meteorological data collected by the observatory is still useful today but, alas, the joint was forced to close in 1904 due to inadequate funding.

Two local ladies ran a four-bedroom hotel-cum-hostel beside the observatory’s main building. Hardy folk these Lochaber lasses.

The aforementioned whisky distillery at the foot of the mountain was founded in 1825 by “Long John” McDonald. As for the piano, that was carried up for charity by 24 removal men from Dundee in 1986. In 1996, the parts they couldn’t get back down were uncovered under one of the cairns by the John Muir Trust, which owns much of the mountain. Archaeological interest was heightened by a McVitie’s biscuit wrapper blown from an unwary hand.

We should also mention that, in 1911, a Model T Ford car was driven up and also down the mountain, with horses pulling it up the more demanding parts.

Aside from these peculiar endeavours, sadly the Ben attracts the leisure-amenity brigade, people who can’t go into nature without some ulterior motive or game in mind. Running up the Ben dates back to 1895 when a local barber made the first timed ascent and back in 2 hours 41 minutes. Why, we will never know.

The first competitive race was held in 1898, when 10 persons in various mental states from troubled to deranged set off from Banavie. The winner was … ach, who cares?

The Ben Nevis Race in its current form takes place every September, with a maximum 500 competitors. Latterly, the Ben has become popular with ski mountaineers and boarders, of whom the least said the better.

One last thing: does one “climb” or “walk” up Ben Nevis? It’s a hotly debated topic. According to travel blog Along Dusty Roads, “hike” might be the operative word as the Ben is an easily navigable “tiddler” compared to other peaks in Europe and South America.

On the other hand, as it takes at least seven hours and requires preparatory research, “it shouldn't be dismissed as just a wee walk”. On a third hand, rather than do either, you could just stand at the bottom and admire it from below.