As so often the case, a new day dawned
finding happy campers raring to go
and adopting unique measures to avoid midges.
Ben Nevis lurked quietly in the background.
The boys practiced their light sabre skills.
And after an obligatory before photo
we set off up the inappropriately named easy route.
Confidence was high as were spirits.
as the path wove ever upwards.
The views thanks to the clear weather were amazing
which was just as well given the frequent pit stops required by the younger members of the team.
This is a quite high up bit and with a better camera you would see a dog in the bottom right it chasing sheep its owner in the top left out of shot, thats a mile to go down and retrieve your bad dog.
Upwards and onwards.
The path clear behind and a long way down
in fact this is the halfway point.
Time for a small celebration
being 1/4 of the way through the day.
The boys helped each other
and sometimes they needed help!
Here sat in the water course
just for a laugh.
The monotonous zig zags now loomed
ahead which a fairly steep bit
zig
zagging uphill. Terrain changes here as we are now over 1100 metres
above sea level so not much lives here
except mosses and children happy in the knowledge that they are higher than Snowdon.
Snow spotted
took their minds off tiredness
for a while at least.
The final slog to the top
began and spirits were not so high, it was colder
and snowing.
That didnt stop the apprentice belly sledging.
Not to be outdone RRMK2 had a go with much less success.
Again the fun of the snow made them forget the walking
ahead
and the inevitable slip ups.
Summit in sight
they "race" to the cairn
which had a bit of a queue
however after a minute or so we
were the highest people in the UK, 1344 metres from sea level in 4.5 miles RRMK2 8 years old and the apprentice 11 years old.
Celebrating success in the snow.
There is a shelter on the summit but believe me you would have to be desperate to use it.
Any port in a storm tho.
The ruins were explored
Eric and Ernie popped out of the rucksack with BMD
The walls of the observatory framed it nicely.
The snow and mist was now making it a bit time to get down safe time
even though there were some very interesting things to see
we were not kitted out for full arctic
and anyway calories needed consuming
to get the get up and go to get back.
Going home legs
pointed in the right direction
with all thoughts of frostbite
banished we made our way back avoiding the overhangs
and the endless falling over
finally making solid footing
only for it to start raining heavily.
Familiar land marks hove into view
as we rapidly descended
marvelling at the camping skills of some brave soul
Beginning to have had enough now emergency sugar rations were handed out to bolster morale.
Still it rained.
Until there was 1 mile left
to go and the sun came out
dried us and the path
bringing smiles to our faces, well nearly all our faces
changing to broad grins back at the bench.
The finish photo!
All that effort, worth it?
The boys thought so and enjoyed the bragging rights
while we refreshed ourselves
as our pizzas and curry was cooked
definitely a two handed pizza occassion.
Time for sugar drinks too. They were shattered.
Lucky for us we didn.t need the help of the air sea rescue
Kit checked and dried out
it was time for a celebratory beverage
and bants
late into the night.
Amazing effort from the boys, a very proud dad today.
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