Extreme Geography of Britain

Is it possible? To drive north from St Andrews to John o' Groats, and then back south to Fort William to climb to the top of Ben Nevis, and then home again to St Andrews in a single weekend? It took some driving and some serious walking, and a bit of snow climbing, and some more driving, but I left Saturday morning around 9 AM and was back in St Andrews at 8 PM on Sunday. All together my route (by no means the most direct) included around 600 miles of driving on the exciting Scottish roads, with around thirty of those miles on the famous single tracks.


Duncansby Head is a mile or two form John o' Groats and is commonly considered (like Lands End in the south) the extreme point on North end of the British Isle. From Duncansby head, to the north you see the Orkney Islands and just a short walk south over the crest form the car-park is a view of the Duncansby Stacks and the Thirle Door, a large tunnel carved through the cliffs by the North Sea.



Duncansby head is, by all accounts, one of the largest seagull rookeries in Britain and there were thousands of birds. With the tide out, I managed to get down onto the stony beach and was able to make my way across slick seaweed covered rocks to the Thirle door. There were gulls (mostly Fulmars) nesting on every tiny ledge and in every nook and cranny on the sandstone cliffs. At any moment, looking down the shoreline, there were a hundred birds in the air with thousands more nesting.

With the summit at 4,406 ft, Ben Nevis is the highest point in all of Britain. I ascended the so called tourist route which follows the old pony path used to supply the observatory that used to sit on top. Being out of shape and with an unusual snowpack for this late in the year, was as much of a climb as I could handle. The pony path zigzags up the slopes just to the left of the right skyline of the peak as pictured here. I was glad to have a borrowed ice axe kicking steps up the steeper part of the climb from the Red burn to the summit plateau. The actual pony track was buried in snow from there up. It is ten miles round trip from the car and the elevation gain is nearly the entire height of the mountain.

I have climbed rock and ice and mountains since I was in my teens and Ben Nevis has always stood high in my esteem. I learned many techniques from Alan Blackshaw's Mountaineering: From Hill Walking to Alpine Climbing published by Penguin in 1970. This book has a decidedly British take on climbing including many photos taken in mountains of Britain. Ben Nevis is where modern ice climbing was first developed. This weekend was, according to more than one climber I spoke to on the summit, the best conditions seen in fifteen years with many of the big climbs that are rarely in good shape perfectly formed. I saw many groups top out onto the summit plateau from the north face. A number of the most difficult climbs in Britain saw ascents this past weekend.