Today i was up the mountain path on Ben Nevis. Plan A was for the CMD arete but with a strong wind forecast we opted for the more guaranteed summit option of the mountain path.
After the short but destructive thaw yesterday there was a surprising amount of snow that had fallen over night. We reached the snow line at around 600m which got thicker until the summit. The snow made for good progress up the mountain being fresh and aerated, so added grip. The winds turned out to not be as strong as forecast so we made steady progress to the summit in 4 hours.
Navigation was not too tricky off the summit with the marker cairns and a few rocks still poking through, but with the week coming with a lot of snow forecast these could all be covered by the weekend.
The 2 best bits of kit i had today were my thick gloves as the wind chill was brutal and my snow goggles, enabling me to see.
