Ben Nevis

Photos of Edinburgh, Loch Ness, and Ben Nevis are here: http://highlandswingphotos.shutterfly.com/
the password is: edinburgh
My camera has a blemish on it. Just ignore that.

The bus ride to Fort William brought me to mountain territory thankfully. Not really the pleasant looking hills, but the rather craggy ones with a goodly slope. Fort William is certainly smaller, but not quite the remote town, as it is touristy as well (I'll have to wait till Glenelg for that!) But the hiking was certainly there, which made me happy. It was a perfectly clear day when I arrived, which tempted me to climb Ben Nevis that evening (good thing I didn't). Instead I did a pleasant circuit called Cow Hill. Going though a bit of glen and trees, I came upon a mountain meadow (queue the lone female voice eerily singing in Scots Gaelic). The beauty and solitude of this meadow was painful (I hadn't seen nothing yet though!) I frolicked around a bit off track with some sheep eying me nervously. In the distance a loch could be seen tucked between mountains, and this one cliff had a stream flowing in the center of its face. In the other direction I saw the back side of Ben Nevis and the trail leading to it. It looked intense! Looked like fun!

Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in Britain (or a munro (and when you hike a munro it's called bagging a munro!)) Well, its only around 4,400 ft, not even half of mt. Hood. But considering it starts around sea level and juts almost straight up, it made for a pretty intense climb. I must admit, I was quite arrogant about it. I figured a big breakfast and a bottle of water would be enough for me. However, with two days of hiking behind me, my legs were already hating me. Also, the water certainly wasn't enough. Luckily, high up on the face of Ben Nevis was an amazing mountain creek that poured cold clear water. Mighty refreshing indeed! Don't fret, no animals get this high, other than panting Englishmen and fit German tourists (they were panting too, everyone was).

It's a pretty popular trail, but you can tell a good amount of people turn back before the top. One of the reasons why there were so many hikers that day was due to the clear weather. Seriously, I've been lucky here! It hasn't rained in Scotland since I've been here, which is especially rare on Ben Nevis. The peak of Ben Nevis is the rainiest part of Britain, and is cloudy for 355 days a year! However, it was a little hazy, so it wasn't the best picture weather.

On the way down my legs were shaking with every step, and the top is pretty much gravel, causing some balance issues. I had two bottles of water by the top, but was still dehydrated. So I went decided to not spent much time at top and go back to the stream (it was prettier in the lower part anyways, giving a nice vantage point of the valley). By the time I arrived there, I wasn't feeling the greatest. But the cold water combined with a banana a Scotsman offered (once again, they really are too kind and knowing), I felt rejuvenated to make it down. I even went back to town through that lovely meadow from the day before. Then I showered, ate haggis, and had a whisky.

This morning, I left for Glasgow. Le sigh, no more traveling by myself. Oddly enough, one of the highlights so far was the bus ride today. Not far south from Fort William is the valley of Glencoe. Man I wish I explored around here! (Oh I will though!) I'm not even exaggerating, this valley was the most spectacular and dramatic landscape I had ever seen! I didn't take photos because it's weird to take them on a moving bus. Besides, I don't even think photography could even capture this place (try google imaging it anyways). But lord! Green walls of mountains on both sides of this huge valley. The area afterwords was unworldly as well. Little hills with random rocks jutting out. Bah, I'm not ready to go back to city life!

Overall, I'm glad I did this first leg of my Scotland experience on my own. I haven't seen the others yet, but I'm sure they're glassy eyed here in Glasgow (which sadly isn't as neat as Edinburgh, but will still be nice to study in (I haven't explored it that much yet, but the Canadian guy from the last hostel who appeared on the bus as well said it reminded him of Montreal(that was a wordy sentence (I use parentheses a lot, don't I?)))). Anyways, I feel a little more wizened as to what regions to go to, and considering we're going to the Isle of Skye next week, I'm sure there will be plenty of pretty sights ahead.