Ben Nevis Guided Hike

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve spent two brilliant days crag climbing in Torridon with Will Manners and four fantastic days winter mountaineering with Mike Mason, arranged by Sylvia and Dave who both were really helpful with arranging the bookings. As ice climbing was not possible in Torridon due to the mild weather, I spent a couple of days with Will learning the basics of building belays, placing runners and trad lead climbing (with the safety of being on a top rope) on the Ardheslaig crag. Will was a great teacher, I learnt so much and I am really happy to have climbed my first diff and v diff routes outdoors despite the wet rock and wearing heavy winter boots. On the first day I felt a bit nervous doing my first crag climbs. However, by the second day it felt amazing climbing the crux of the v diff route and, with the encouragement of Will, daring to put my trust in the boots on the wet rock when there were only very tiny holds for my hands. I really enjoyed all of the climbing that day! The following week, Mike and I did some brilliant mountaineering routes in Glencoe and on Ben Nevis, inc. Hourglass Gully, Tower Ridge, Aonach Eagach and No 2 Gully. Every single day was fantastic and as expected Mike was just as excellent guiding in winter as in summer, providing great company on the hills and true to form ensuring the weather was perfect! The highlights for me were; Tower Ridge, which was really exiting with some good challenges along the route and finishing the walkout watching the sunset, racing across the bogs in the dwindling light adding to the sense of adventure; No 2 Gully which was really stunning and so enjoyable as I felt I was starting to get the hang of seconding a bit more efficiently thanks to Mikes patient guidance over the previous days. On all the other days I had been very happy that Mike was leading, but as we were climbing Gully 2, for the first time I started feeling that I would definitely quite like to try leading properly, which was a really good feeling - Thanks to Mike for getting me to that point! As always I cannot recommend WCMG highly enough and this winter’s experience completely exceeded my expectations!!! The only shame with having all these epic days out was that my no 1 partner in all adventures in life was not able to join for more than one day due to being very ill… But we will definitely be back for more amazing WCMG adventures in the future :)

Great experience with a great guide (Will). I appreciated his skill, patience, kindness, knowledge, flexibility, and passion for the hills. Would highly recommend this guide and company for Ben Nevis.

Awesome day with guide Craig who was knowledgeable, friendly and good fun. In great conditions we made it to the summit with some expert nav from our guide!