A recollection of Ben Nevis

I’ve finally sat down to recall the events of the weekend. In short it was a glorious hike, pictures of which you can see in the tab to the right. Please comment on the pictures you like. I have my favorites, but I like to know which happen to be the favorite of others, a filter that sometimes reveals a great picture I may have overlooked at first glance. The ninety odd pictures you see displayed are out of some three hundred I took on the trip, but I have become adept and cutting the chaff, and I no longer feel the need to hold on to less than desirable snapshots. So, those to the right are the best.

First, however, a word about Friday. The farewell party was a riot. It was great to let loose and sing with one another, watch wacky parody performances, and be in a few crazy skits myself. The tutors, directors and I performed several Monty Python sketches, specifically the Argument sketch, the Spanish Inquisition sketch, and the Lumberjack sketch. The Lumberjack song served as the culmination of the festivities, and Mark (a tutor) and I were the questionable Lumberjacks who had an odd predilection to “wearing women’s clothing.” I’m sure a few pictures exist, but I won’t mind if they fade into obscurity. It was great fun, and continued on to Doctors afterward for a wonderful last night of festivities and farewells.

Coincidentally, one of the students brought a friend to the party and it turned out to be one of the five or six people I know who live in Edinburgh. Kathy, unbeknownst to either of us, had been staying at Ben’s flat for the last two weeks, Ben being the guy who generously let me stay in his flat for a few days on my first visit (see early posts). It was great to see him again and catch up. Though he knew I would be in Edinburgh, we weren’t sure exactly when we might catch up. It was a pleasant surprise to see him walk in the door.

I went to bed, hoping to get a restful sleep before my big day at Ben Nevis, but was woken up two hours early at 5am by the fire alarm. This must have messed up my alarm clock somehow (in my bleary-eyed thumbing, I must have switched off the alarm on my iphone) and I woke up at 6:45, realizing that I had to be at the train station at 7:15. Luckily, a cab was ready, and I was on my way to the station before I could even get stressed out about being late.

I made the train in time, and was on my way to Fort William. On the train ride there, I had another moment of fortune; I was sitting across from a young Norwegian, Frederick, who was also planning on climbing Nevis. I counted myself lucky because I was a little nervous about attempting Ben Nevis on my own. There are deaths on it every year, usually in the winter months, but the mountain can be surprisingly wicked to those not prepared for it. Unlike my last trip, I was very prepared: water resistant windbreaker, pullover, broken-in hiking boots, along with my typical fresh pair of socks, water, granola bars. Last time, my feet with obliterated by Ben Cleuch and Ben Arthur when I attempted them with running shoes.

The company was pleasant for the 4-hour trip there, though conversation did turn to the terrible killings in Oslo that had happened just the previous evening. I started reading a book on the History of Scotland, and soaked in the countryside as it passed by the smudged windows with a clickity-clack.

The climb started, as most hikes do, with bewilderment. We weren’t sure at first where the trailhead was, and it took me a while to figure out exactly which mountain was Ben Nevis (you’d think the tallest one would be a pretty obvious indicator, but you’d be wrong). Of course, this sense of bewilderment is the product of hiking on a path. I wondered what it was like for the brave men who climbed before the signs directed you to the safest route. Were they too staggered by the grey monolith before them? Did they have a moment of doubt before they set off? Why did they climb it? Because it was there? Why am I climbing it? Because I want to partake in that first climb? Quietly and without discussion, for words were entirely unnecessary, Frederick and I turned to the mountain, breathing in sharply, half in wonder and half to gather resolve, and set off.

Ben Nevis is the tallest point in the British Isles, standing 1344m. He is a scrappy old grey man with a craggy face and a bald crown of rubble. His feet are green pasture land like so many of his kin around him, scarred with burns (streams) that cut deep shadowy crevices into his sides. The lush green of pastureland gives way to coarser grasses and heather as you ascend up the first third of the climb (which isn’t actually part of Ben Nevis’s slopes but of a smaller ridge that makes up his foundation) aiming at the source of the burn, a beautiful steall (waterfall) that is set into the mountain’s shoulders.

Frederick and I climbed, but the pace proved too quick for my foot. Before even reaching sight of the steall, each step became more and more of an annoyance until palpable pain could be felt with every step. I loosened my boot, relieving the discomfort for a while, only to tighten it up again when it returned. Steps had their own particular nuance of pain. Some were a dull ache, others, when I landed on my mid-foot, shot an intense and sickening jolt up my leg. None of it was unbearable, but as a result, I found myself making dramatic adjustments in order to find a position without the discomfort. I found one, or what seemed to be one, by rising up on the ball of the foot, and placing all of the weight there. Unfortunately, as part of the experiment, an oddly shaped rock placed the metatarsals in an untenuous constellation, and in a moment, my world devolved into a single, solitary crack. At first, I was livid at myself. I had pushed myself too hard, and I was afraid my foot was about to swell up like an eggplant. I stopped, took off my shoe, and waited, telling Frederick to go on ahead – he had a train to catch back to Edinburgh that day and couldn’t afford to wait.

After a 15 min rest, and no change in the size of my foot, I set out again, promising to myself to listen to my body, a step that was entirely unnecessary. My foot spoke to me throughout the rest of the hike, and I had no choice but to listen. Every step. I continued up to finish the first third of the trek, passing the mountain loch that is nestled between. People were camped there, and I was envious. I can’t imagine how wonderful it would to unzip a tent and be presented with this wonderland in the morning. The land around the loch is soft, patches of it boggy, the grass growing high, hiding the mucky black beneath their tuberous roots. Along the trail were tiny runoffs where clear water trickled down the mountain face into the loch below it. In one of these, I stopped to bathe my foot while I took stock of my situation.

I didn’t want to turn back. But as you near the mountain loch you see the Nevis in his full attire. An impossibly steep trail zigs back and forth until it disappears out of sight over the first lip of the mountain. Just that portion looked impossible considering my situation, and I despaired at being able to go on. However, the cool water did wonders for my foot, and soothed the discomfort so that when I next stood up, it was nearly imperceptible. I started off again, setting a routine, walking for 20 min and resting for 10. This, along with the initial bathing of the foot, proved to be the recipe for success. I won’t linger on the pain, suffice to say, for the rest of the climb, it was intermittent. I almost gave up, sitting there by the loch, but I am so glad I didn’t. Another hour later, I finally reached the steall, gazing down at the crossroads, where I had almost turned around, amazed I had come that far. From that point on, I knew it was a matter of determination. This was going to be like no other climb I had ever done (or ever will in the future, I hope). I wasn’t injured, I wasn’t lame. It hurt, some moments worse than others, but never ached when I stopped putting pressure on it. Methodical steps; patient, careful, well-placed steps. I knew I could reach the peak, and I literally had all day to do it if I had to. Besides, it would be a shame to waste the perfect weather, and I felt safe because the trail (due to the glorious weather) was very well populated for the moment. In fact, there were people running up the trail, preparing for the Ben Nevis race in September. The fastest time for the 9 mile trail up 4,400 ft of incline is one hour and twenty-five minutes. Amazing. I figured, I could do this.

As I said, the base of Nevis is green, but the second you cross the large steall set in his shoulders, the stony steeps quickly vault up into the highland skyline, heaving you into an airy world ringed in with stunning mountain encrusted horizons. Almost immediately, the trail and the slopes changed to loose rocks. He is hard, but yielding in the worst way. The grade of the trail is quite steep, and the loose stones at your feet result in many stumbles and slips, especially for those coming down. I saw at least three falls in front of me, and heard later in the day from a fellow hiker of a guy who turned his ankle halfway up. The unstable footing was frustrating, but whenever I felt too exhausted by the concentration, I took a break. I was supposed to be enjoying this, and enjoy it I did. Three hundred pictures in all; added together, hours of gazing at the vistas as I took care to rest my foot. Every turn of the trail revealed a new view of the surrounding mountains, and if possible, they became more beautiful with every step. Nevis, however, is ugly. The gray stony wasteland of his slopes are not particularly stunning up close, and the eye always turns outward to the amazingly beautiful Loch Linnhe below and the Ring of Steall to the East. Compare this to the grey wasteland of Ben Nevis’s slopes, the stark difference shocks the eye with a different and more austere sense of beauty, as if Nevis were the stern presbyterian headmaster of this school of peaks.

At each crest, we feel the sudden despair as we see the next stretch of road sprawling ahead, higher, and higher. I felt like Sisyphus, climbing and waiting to roll back down, only to stand up and start the climb again. Hours passed. I thought, I sang, I smiled, I grimaced, I worried, I stood still, I held my breath. The whole comedy of humanity played itself out in my head as I climbed. And at every turn, confronted with the seemingly infinitude of mountains surrounding me, I felt small, and reveled in the sublime experience. Our perceived world is human; we construct castles of air around ourselves assured of our importance, imagining ourselves in control, above nature, masters. But, while I might be climbing, inch by inch, a mountain, I am not mastering it. It is mastering me, reminding me of what I am – a mere speck in the wonderland that embraces me.

I’ve spoken of this before, but I’m amazed how unpopulated these areas are. Of course, there is a historical reason for this - the Highland clearances - and a economic reason for this, the industrialization of Scotland and depopulation of the rural areas. Still, it is unfathomable to me that this land isn’t inhabited. Nevis, for example, isn’t a national park, it is privately owned trust, and the sheep graze, denuding it of any trees that might attempt to brave its inhospitable slopes. Sure it is that once this world was filled with trees, and after the farmers carved out the feilds of the farmlands that made up much of scottish history, many still stood, cradling the crop from blustery winds. But then there was the clearing of the last trees... and the Cheviot, completely redefining the contours of the land, carved by the teeth of sheep and the brush of the breeze, blowing away, along with the soil, a way of life. It is an important exercise, to remind oneself that the beauty of these mountains is not entirely natural, and is the result of a very complex history of human loss. Of course, Scotland exported itself to other places where her people thrived, some captains of industry in America or Australia, others roughing the seas of Nova Scotia, or exchanging glens for hollows in the Appalachian mountains. But if a land creates a people, forms its identity, one wonders why there are none here and what that means.

And that makes me recall the lecture we had earlier this week on Hugh Macdiarmid, where I had the pleasure of listening to Professor Alan Riach speak again. Listening, I was struck by an odd paradox. The Scots language when you hear it is much like the landscape from which it sprung. It gives a hint of something ancient and eroded. You hear echoes, or what you perceive as echoes, of English, as if you were looking at a 18th century tombstone whose engraved letters have been worn away -- that's a T there, but an E, I'm not quite sure. But the language, like the mountain-scapes surrounding me on my hike, give an illusion out of step with history. It seems as if, hearing it, that Scots has devolved from the English, elusion and syncope forming a poetry of rhythm in the speech, in effect an eroded formal tongue. But in fact, of course, this is not true. Instead it is the glens of the Gallic tongue, the burns of time etching crevices and cracks that were then embossed with centuries of English dominance and imposition, covering and often effacing the language beneath it. Scots is in-between, with so much evidence of loss, much like the mountains denuded of trees, but the scottish spirit, like the bare rock of Nevis now standing in stark resilient witness to what remains around him, it is still there and can't be removed.

I topped Ben Nevis after nearly 5 hours of climbing. It was indeed worth it. At the top it was cold, zero degrees Celsius in fact, and there was a patch of snow cupped into a recess where the sun didn’t reach. I made a small little snowman. The pictures speak for themselves but can’t possibly do justice.

The hike down was easier, but hellishly tough on the knees. Halfway down, it became a bit of a slog, and I was looking forward to a bed in the bunkhouse where I had a reservation for the night. What should have been a four-hour hike, took almost nine. That said, I feel very accomplished at having finished. When I finally checked into the Ben Nevis Bunkhouse (which is right at the foot of the trailhead and super convenient), I gulped down some fish and chips, had a pint, and then slept for 12 hours straight.

The weather on the next day was just as glorious as the day before, which is very uncharacteristic. I feel a bit like a thief, stealing the good weather away when others who have stayed the course through the winter are the ones who truly deserve it. It was a hot and sunny day, and by hot I actually mean about 78 degrees F. I had intended to do another 8-mile hike, but decided, wisely, to spend the day in Fort William instead. I did some shopping and rested, falling asleep in the park on the cool grass. It was a wonderful day.

I bought a new wallet, one that actually fits the slightly larger pound notes. I stalked the stores, looking for free WiFi, and found some. I slept some more in the park, watched people spending the wonderful Sunday afternoon, and then hopped on my train at five for Edinburgh.

On the way, I met a wonderful couple, Tony and Catherine, and talked the entire way to Glasgow. Turns out they were teachers too, only Tony, a native of Glasgow, now taught in Hong Kong. Catherine was a teacher as well, though working in publishing now, from what I gathered. It was a wonderful way to bookend the weekend by myself, and I was overjoyed at the friendly hospitality of these people. Sharing the scenic train ride, which is by itself worth the trip, we had good honest conversation and heartfelt gratitude for each other's presence. It is very special to meet with random people and connect so immediatly. I wish things like this happened more often in the states. Needless to say, we exchanged email addresses, and I hope we stay in touch.

Talking to them awakened a small latent part of me that has been festering awhile; the desire to become an expatriate, not necessarily to Scotland, just in general. I’m not certain I will do it, but the idea of picking up, if just for a while, seems so grand in my imagination. Of course, for now, I know my path, concentrate on finishing my MA, then who knows.

I've gone on far to long for this post. Please forgive the rambling thoughts.

The week has been quiet. The new students are great. My new partner, Aretha, has been a godsend, helping split the workload. It has been an uneventful, but busy week thus far.

I’m planning to go on another hike this weekend, this time with five others. My foot is MUCH better now. No lasting damage or problems. I’m sure I’ll be in top form for the weekend. I’ve also been booking tickets for shows during the Fringe like mad! I’ll post links when I finally get them all together.

For now, however, good night.