Scottish ice climbing on Smith's Route Ben Nevis

It's the 16th of April 2008 and Fi and Ron have a day ice climbing on the North Face of Ben Nevis. They climb Smith's Route a "Cold Climb's" classic that takes you onto the summit of Ben Nevis the highest mountain in the UK.
For the latest winter climbing and off-piste skiing conditions visit the Talisman Mountaineering blog at http://talisman-activities.blogspot.com/

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• ice
• climbing
• Ben
• Nevis
• snow
• scottish
• mountaineering
• Fort
• William
• Smith's
• Route
• winter
• sports
• cascade
• glace
• escalade

[hunta998]

Nice vid. Im purely a rock climber but this has certainly got me thinking about doing Winter stuff. Looks like bloody hard work though! Reckon I'll need to get fitter before I thought about having a go.

[RonWalker1955]

Hard work sums it up as the approach to higher climbs on Ben Nevis take around 4 hours with aheavy sack and often considerably longer in fresh snow. 18 hour days or longer on some routes are not uncommon. But it is well worth it and far more rewarding than rock climbing on roadside crags...!

[PeterMRodgers]

Fantastic vid, how have you filmed it? head cam? what kinda kit?

[RonWalker1955]

A headcam would be nice but it was just a five year old Sony Cybershot P10 digital sill camera on video mode...!

[st3ves]

Thats me on Hadrian's. Great day out. Nice Vid.

[RonWalker1955]

Colder and windier than expected. Good route how were the upper slopes on Hadrian's. We saw a guy hovering about the start of Point 5 do you know how he got on! Were you the three guys that were just behind us when we returned to the NF carpark?

[jaspermulldoone]

Exellent filming. I climbed Ben Nevis over 40 years ago, no snow but rain and cloud all the way up. Never saw the view from the top.Thanks for the memories.

[bofudge35]

we walked up in july this year and it nearly killed us!!! God knows how you managed it well done!! Great vid

[fultonville]

I'm a Yank that's been living in London for the last 8 but I've been ice climbing in western Canada every season for over 27 years but this makes me want to stay on the island and go north at least once. All I need is a partner. Well done and thanks for the vid.

[firefighter1588]

real men

[st3ves]

Quite alot of Graupel on upper slopes, but good ice for pro on belays. He soloed first pitch, then got his rope out, back rope solo maybe...strange!

Yes we got back about 20:30 ish