This trip was initially meant to be a local bikepacking ride in Kent, either back on the North Downs Way, or the Cantii Way. But at the start of the week I was planning to go I decided that I fancied some mountains, and began planning a trip to the Lake District; I got train times worked out and a 2/3 day hiking route put together. I booked an extra day off work, partly to get a new door fitted before I went and to give me an extra night away.
I started to think, if the Lake District is do-able, what about Scotland – on the sleeper train. Maybe that would be feasible. So I looked at tickets, but as expected they all sold out. I looked at the cancellation policy and figured that maybe some tickets would become available last minute if people cancelled them in the partial refund window.
This Scotland plan only really entered my head on the Tuesday, and it wasn’t until the Wednesday that some tickets became available and I had to actually decide whether to go for it or not. I debated for too long and the tickets went again! I was disappointed enough to realise that I did really want to go, so I kept refreshing the booking page with my dates on. Eventually, some more tickets became available – so I quickly booked them; I was going to Scotland, tomorrow!
Now I just had to plan what I was actually going to do. I had no route and had just booked Fort William as the destination because I’d been there before so at least I wasn’t starting from zero.
I struggled to put together a route that balanced distance, time, elevation, suitable camping spots and everything else need to make a good 3 day walk. I didn’t want to have to march for hours on end, but I didn’t want it to be too easy. It was difficult to get the right balance, given my inexperience with the terrain.
I finally settled on a route that looked doable in two long days, or three chill ones, leaving myself some room to figure it out on the day.
On the Thursday afternoon I got the train up to London, way ahead of my sleeper train’s departure time, to get supplies on the way through from the array of outdoor shops around Covent Garden. I picked up a waterproof OS map of the area, some gas and then proceeded to visit every outdoor shop in the vicinity on the hunt for a warm hat but amazingly none were to be found. I ended up in Finisterre by Seven Dials, having checked their website to see if they sold warm hats and then having to hope they actually had them in the shop (I later discovered that I had actually packed my other, bulky, warm hat anyway. But I’d wanted a thinner one for a while).
I perambulated north through London on foot, avoiding the underground like the plague, and arrived near Euston still with more time to spare than even the most cautious of traveller’s would normally allow. So I killed some time by finding out where the train would leave from (not obvious) and counting myself lucky that I don’t often find myself in London during rush hour.
The Wellcome Trust is a short walk away from Euston and was a welcome calm, quiet space with clean toilets to wait and repack my bag with my new purchases.
As the departure time neared I made my way back to the station via Sainsbury’s and struggled to make any choices on what to get for the journey. Hours after my arrival in London I joined the already growing queue of people waiting to board the sleeper train – we all shared a silent chuckle when a man sprinted through the crowd, past the waiting member of sleeper train staff posted at the barrier and onto the platform, clearly thinking that this train was his train and that it was about to leave any second! Repeated shouts from multiple members of staff did nothing to deter him from his goal, until he realised that the doors weren’t opening and the train wasn’t going anywhere (and wouldn’t be for another hour) and he finally realised that this wasn’t his train, returning along the platform confused – I hope he found his actual train.
It was only after the train left the station and I began to think about the journey ahead that I remembered, from deep in my memory that I don’t sleep on long journeys. Memories of sleepless flights and overnight buses came back from their hiding places.
At least I’d eventually managed to get my seat to recline – 10 whole degrees. I settled in for a long, boring journey.
I managed to get about 20 minutes of sleep on the second leg of the journey, after changing at Edinburgh, with pure tiredness overriding my normal inability to sleep while travelling. I found it hard to appreciate the stunning views outside the window as we got further north into Scotland, passing through some truly rugged places.
I had begun to think I was being a bit of wimp, this second train felt very cold, until some rail workers got on and complained that it was “cold in here” and they’d just been outside!
Having left London at 21:15, the train duly arrived in Fort William at 10:00 the next morning, with most passengers having followed the train’s tagline “fall asleep in London, wake up in Scotland”, my version being “fail to sleep in London, still awake in Scotland”.
But I’d made it, I was in Scotland! It had only been a matter of time, a long, long time.
Off the train, I traipsed into town, looking for somewhere to eat and, somewhat ironically, sit down to have a rest. Up and down the high street I shuffled, finding only two places seemingly open and serving food, one vegan place which I didn’t fancy (I have no objection to vegan food, but right now I wanted something fried, beige and carby) and one busy, relatively upmarket, café – in which the staff failed to acknowledge my presence, which isn’t something that normally bothers me, I tend to be quite patient, but apparently sleep deprived Josh is less patient so I walked out.
This turned out to be a mistake however, as the place I had been before and was hoping to default to had closed down. The town generally had a sense that it was still recovering from the effects of Covid.
So, hungry and tired I dithered around in Fort William for a couple of hours – achieving nothing. I went around in circles on what to do; continue as planned, head straight for a campsite and get some sleep or book a room at the Premier Inn. I went in and out of Morrisons about five times, unable to commit to a decision. I walked over the road to the Premier Inn and asked about booking a room, but with no early check in available and a ridiculous price I left, with one option scratched off my mental list.
I resolved to just get some food for the next couple of days and get the bus in the direction I’d planned to and see what happened...
I didn’t know when I stepped off the bus about half an hour later at about 1pm, that this was the start of a walk that wouldn’t end until 4am.
My walk began on the valley floor, heading for Lower Falls in Glen Nevis. The first few km was on nice smooth gravel, then a section of tarmac, followed by a path that required each footstep to be considered and only the most confident of walkers kept their hands in their pockets.
Soon Lower Falls revealed itself, an impressive sight, even seen for the second time. My previous visit had been an out and back, the waterfall being the halfway point. Today, this was just the beginning (though I didn’t realise at the time how true this would be).
I continued on, into new territory. I followed an established path for about another kilometre before my planned route had me leave the path and begin the hike up, into the mountain pass above.
There was a couple on the established path and they were the last people, I saw, at about 2pm, until 4am.
There was evidence of other people having walked this route, but there was no path and footprints were few and far between.
Deviations from the route I’d drawn on the map were necessary, thin blue lines on the map becoming wide, fast, impassible rivers on the ground.
Each step was like going up two stairs at a time, I gained elevation very quickly. The couple from the path soon becoming ant like.
The next few hours were spent picking my way through some rugged, and very wet, terrain. On and off rain dealt shrugged off with ease by the head to toe Páramo kit I’m lucky to have.
I passed a couple of good wild camping spots, too early in the day to stop, despite, or perhaps because of my tiredness I decided to press on each time.
Higher into the pass I climbed, further from well trodden paths. The scenery was stunning, some of the best I’ve seen, ever. The terrain was unforgiving, mountain floodplains and boulder fields made for slow progress.
I began to focus on finding a viable place to sleep that wasn’t currently a river, going to be a river overnight, directly on top of a boulder or prone to becoming a wind tunnel.
If I went back again, I’d probably find plenty of absolutely fine spots, but at the time I failed to judge anywhere as acceptable. So I continued on, and on.
I hadn’t yet got to the area I’d originally circled as where I planned to camp on the first night, but had altered my plan to camp earlier on the route given my sleepless journey.
By now it was approaching 6pm and I was starting to flag, a lack of sleep, food & water combining.
With nowhere suitable to sleep I began the last, pathless, steep climb up to the higher level of the pass, where I’d circled a likely looking camping area.
After trudging up a tricky climb I was faced with yet more boulders and a well funnelled wind.
Exhausted, I was unable to think clearly and find somewhere to pitch.
Sunset was two hours away and I was in the shadow of Ben Nevis. I decided that I’d had enough, I wanted off this mountain. Which was easier thought than done. I was 800m up and many, many kilometres from civilisation.
I ducked behind a dry stone wall, to give myself a break from the wind – although fairly mild, I find wind oppressive at the best of times.
I decided to push on.
To go past my planned first camping spot, to go up over the ridge and then down the tourist path down into Glen Nevis. Even at the time I knew it wasn’t an amazing idea and would require a big effort, effort I was planning to take a whole second day.
Minutes after turning up the climb that would take me up toward Carn Mor Dearg (CMD, a well known grade 1 ridge line scramble), I realised I’d underestimated this idea.
I paused to assess, I had around two hours of daylight left, no (or so I thought) good camping spots anywhere close back the way I’d come. I pushed on. My poles now stowed on my bag, my hands needed for scrambling.
I reasoned that to downclimb now would be worse than continuing.
Time check: an hour until sunset.
Low cloud intermittently shrouded the ridges above me and once I got high enough I would find myself on a narrow island of land in a grey sea as the cloud rolled in.
I reached the main CMD ridge line, having joined it from one side, cutting off the corner to avoid a 1200m peak by a couple of hundred meters. Far in front and to the left loomed Ben Nevis, and to my right, the intimidating peak I’d avoided.
It was hard to judge how far it was along the ridge to the summit of Ben Nevis and I was too tired to check a map and work it out. I adopted a process of walk a bit and assess.
I progressed along the ridge line, each movement requiring full concentration. I was hyper aware that I was alone, dusk was settling and I was incredibly, extremely, tired.
A path just down from the ridge provided welcome relief from hands and feet scrambling but all too soon petered out, leaving me scrambling up boulders to find the ‘main’ path.
Swearing to myself, as I had been for some time, I could hear the headline of my own mountain recuse in my head. I countered with a mantra of “just walk out. It doesn’t matter when, just walk out”.
Back up on the ridge, the summit of Ben Nevis looked no closer.
My resolve slumped, and led to probably the best decision I’d made in a few hours: not to summit. I knew what the path the other side of the summit was like, having been there before and I was confident I could navigate that in the dark and tired. But between there and where I was, there was a lot of unknown ridge left. I could see a decent amount of downclimbing ahead, which I dislike even in daylight.
If I wasn’t exhausted and carrying a large pack, it would still be a difficult and dangerous traverse and one I felt was guaranteed to end badly today.
So I re-assessed, reluctant to have to think of a new plan, while up on the ridge. I decided to back track, and downclimb the scree slope, down into the valley in front of me.
So, very carefully, aware that a single mistake could leave me in a very difficult situation, I began climbing down, off the ridge. Another time check, another glance at where the sun was hidden behind low cloud.
I picked my way down. The effort becoming more than I had energy for, my rests becoming more frequent.
Glancing back at where I’d come from showed disappointing progress. So much daylight gone, for so little elevation lost. Beyond slowly, I made it down to the runout at the bottom before it got dark enough to need a headtorch. I was elated.
I was still far from the bottom, but I’d safely got over the most risky sections.
I considered a few more patches of ground as I made my way across another builder field, my mind too invested in getting off this bloody mountain to really entertain the idea of pitching now.
The landmark of the CIC mountain hut was a good break to stop and get my headtorch out, which I should have done about 20 minutes prior. I thought from here it would be smooth sailing. But I had a couple more river crossings and a washed out path to contend with before I reached a path that I could actually follow.
It was now about 11pm and I was running on empty. I hadn’t stopped for lunch, I hadn’t stopped for dinner and I’d barely drunk anything. I’d none of the things you should do and many of the things you shouldn’t.
I repeated my mantra “just walk out”. Every step an effort, I continued on, slowly but surely.
I passed the area I’d planned to sleep for night two, continuing with my stupid idea of doing the whole thing in one just to get off the mountain.
Eventually I turned a corner and I knew where I was, not that I was lost, but I knew what the path was like and it wouldn’t be long until I was walking on ground I’d been on before.
It was about midnight.
Now I knew it would be an easy (relatively) but long walk out.
It didn’t matter what time I got down – “just walk out”.
My poles a vital part of staying up right, each drainage ditch passed only by stopping, putting the poles on the other side and then stepping over.
I had been seeing things in the shapes made by the rocks for quite some time and began to think I was also hearing things, until out of the 2am darkness, four women appeared, chatting away to each other, walking up toward me as if out for a walk in the park on a Sunday morning.
Moments later they were swallowed by the dark, leaving the beam of my headtorch. Not entirely sure I hadn’t imagined the entire encounter I put my hand over my headtorch and turned around, they were nowhere to be seen.
Thankfully, soon after another couple of groups of people passed me on their way up, confirming the reality of the first group with their presence. I remain amazed that they were walking up in the pitch black though.
It was 4am before I made it to Glen Nevis campsite, my shining beacon of hope I was glad to know about from having stayed there before. I’d started to fall asleep while walking, so arriving at the campsite didn’t come a moment too soon.
Completely done, I pitched my tent and crawled into my sleeping bag, hoping that I’d actually pitched it well enough to stay up.
I was dead to the world from the moment my head hit the pillow until about midday, when some unexpected sun warmed my tent to an unbearable degree – my -12ºC rated bag having been lovely as a cosy duvet in the cold of the early morning, but now in the small space of my tent I couldn’t avoid the unwanted warmth of it.
The events between waking up that Saturday afternoon and leaving the campsite at midday on Sunday are a bit of a blur. At some point I was politely hassled a few times to pay for the campsite, I bought some snacks from the (thankfully) very well stocked campsite shop, sheltered from the sun in the shade of a tree, re-pitched my tent a little better, hid from really heavy rain and went in and out of sleep at random.
I was lucky that the staff were so pro-active at checking tags on tents as it was only a shuffling and a gentle “hello, are you planning to stay here again tonight?” that woke me from an unplanned nap late on Sunday morning. I likely would’ve found myself short on time to get my train had they not woken me.
With surprising speed I packed up the kit strewn around my tent and the dripping wet tent itself into my bag and strode out to wait for the bus back into town.
A free bus ride later, thanks to the card machine dying, I was back in Fort William, which I found to be a tricky place to kill time. I had several hours until my return train and could only kill so much time ambling up and down the high street on tired legs.
I spent three or so hours just sitting in the small train station, people watching the few people there were. And watching with some bemusement the amount of interest one particular train got – the Jackobite train, a steam train I’d seen on my arrival at the station appeared to be something special.
Eventually it was time to get on the train and prepare for another sleepless journey home – if it weren’t for my recently acquired secret weapon: sleeping tablets. I took one of those bad boys and waited eagerly for its effects...
I was still waiting as the train pulled into London Euston about a week later. I thought between the tablet and my baseline level of tiredness would be enough, but no. I enjoyed the sounds of a couple largely oblivious to their fellow passengers as they failed to use their inside voices and the woman coughed up her lungs at regular intervals.
In a daze I drug myself across London, onto a local train home and into a taxi at my local station. I opened the door to my house as if I were crossing into the promised land.
I showered, and logged into work.
Prior to going up on the train I had been loosely planning to go back up to Scotland for a bikepacking trip and a winter-lite hiking trip in the next 12 months, but given my inability to sleep on the train these ideas are on hold until I figure out how to make it not so awful.
This trip wasn’t as I’d planned. I got myself into an unnecessarily risky situation, veered heavily into Type 2 fun for nearly the whole time I was away (including the journeys), and strayed into Type 3 fun.
I learnt some lessons that will stay with me and I will approach any future trips with the knowledge I gained. I found my limit on this trip. Thankful to have walked off, but greatly humbled.
I have since bought a Garmin In Reach device and plan to take a bivvy bag on any trips where an overnight in the mountains is a possibility.