Failing to Summit Ben Nevis in Scotland via CMD Ridge (DON'T DO THIS!)

Ok we are at the ridge of Ben Nevis, but... It's very steep. And the visibility is extremely poor.  We are SO CLOSE! But decided to... Pull out. Yeah it's a tough call but  it's the right thing to do. Heading Back! Hi, this is Jonathan! Welcome back from that attempt to summit Ben Nevis in Scotland. In this section I will show you the different available routes to reach the summit! To make sure you don't make the same mistake that we did. And give you some general planning advice. First of all, if you enjoyed this video Please consider showing your support by subscribing to my channel! As it ultimately enables me to get out and do more of these treks & videos to share with you! Our starting point for this hike was Fort Williams. You can get there by train from Glasgow . Or like many hikers arrive from the West Highland Way. From there it's about 2-3 km walk to Glen Nevis. Which is the starting point for this trek. You can walk there in the morning, but it's 2-3 km. Or you can also take a taxi from wherever you are staying to reach Glen Nevis! If you are hiking the West Highland Way You are going to come in from this direction over here. You will actually go past this point if you're heading towards Fort William. You could pitch a tent nearby! And start the summit attempt directly in the morning. The first part... climbing up this side of the mountain is fairly straight forward. A little bit of zig-zagging across... But...it's not very steep. This part I would say is maybe the easiest! Hiking up this area here you get these amazing views over the waterfall. And right after that there is a lake. Just after that lake you have the choice to go either left or right. In this intersection. And the right path here that you see in green is the normal or "standard" route. Which takes you right up to the top. This is considered the easier route. Of the ones we have and it's a bit shorter in distance than going to the left. We wanted a bit of a challenge! So we decided to go left. If you do so, you are going towards the north face. Down into this valley over here. A very beautiful area... I would guess it's more scenic than going the traditional route. Maybe here's something worth pointing out: Down in this valley, around here. Where there is also a hut to shelter... (If things go bad...) There were a lot of waterfalls and a lot of water streams That you need to wade through! So you need to take off your boots and actually wade through that area... Something to consider! See this side up to Caern Mor Daerg? The small mountain top on the left... You basically just zig-zag your way all up! To that mountain top. And you won't have a clear marked trail in this area... So you need to go about where it feels good for you! This area is quite steep, you may have falling rocks! If a lot of people are climbing this face that might become dangerous. When we were here it was only the 2 of us. So we didn't really face that problem. Reaching the top here you continue over this ridge here. What we did was actually go down a little bit on the left. About half way over this 1st part. You could go around that ridge. So you go down a bit... There was a path! It was actually a marked path, you could see other people had gone this route. And then come back up. We hiked a little bit towards the side of that ridge, over here. Once we reached this point, towards the end. It got very steep. You had to scramble, you had to use all 4... To climb. And we had very poor visibility. So. We felt we were risking our lives If we were to continue on this path. So we decided to go back! In retrospect I would say: when you reach this intersection over here You can make the decision for yourself and if you have mist anywhere or a lot of rain pouring down. I think going up the "mountain path", the easier path directly Instead of trying to ascend the hard path... Is... a better decision! You need to be moderately fit to complete this hike. It's an elevation of about 1300m, so quite the climb. SO! Thanks for watching! And good luck with your summit attempt!

Channel: Jonathan Lundmark

Views: 4,343

Keywords: hiking, trekking, vandring, gopro, 4k, gh5, scotland, ben nevis, glen nevis, fort william, cmd, north face, ridge, steep, fail, summit, ascend, carn mor daerg, arete, kraig adams, harmen hoek

Id: OUPQ9FqKFLI

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2022