29

Ben Neverest

I’VE NEVER BEEN known to be willingly impartial to a silly adventure in the mountains.

Sir Hugh Munro failed to climb all but three of his famous list of Scottish 3,000ft mountains. In 1991, to celebrate the centenary of the first publication of Munro’s Tables, Robin Campbell carried a life-size effigy of its author to the three summits for a ‘post­humous’ completion of his Munro round. I wish I’d thought of that.

29 May 2003, was the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest by Hillary and Tenzing, and it felt necessary to commemorate the occasion in some way. A repeat ascent was obviously out of the question, both practically and financially. I shall probably never have the ability or funds to climb the world’s highest mountain now, but I console myself with the fantasy of being the oldest person ever to do so. Usefully, this is one ambition that can never be thwarted and to which I can cling until the day I die.

In 2003 the most appropriate substitute ascent Allan and I could come up with was the ascent of the highest mountain in our own country: Ben Nevis, renamed Ben Neverest for the day. Allan and I were imaginative souls. Glen Nevis was our base camp, the rock steps of the Mountain Track were our Khumbu Ice Fall, Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe half-way up was our South Col. A jaunt up the track would suffice for the ascent route as the important thing was not the journey but the destination.

The not-so-well-dressed hillwalker

Hillary and Tenzing had reached the summit at 11.30am. A quick internet search revealed that Nepal time was five and three-quarter hours ahead of GMT. For verisimilitude, we therefore had to be at the summit at 5.15pm. As it was a cold and drizzly day, we wouldn’t want to hang around up there for too long, so we delayed setting off until the early afternoon. By that time, more than the usual number of weekday walkers were already coming down. We surmised that they too had been celebrating the occasion but had failed to go the extra mile and summit at the correct time, which enabled us to pass them with smug satisfaction.

The summit was deserted by the time we reached it. Having overestimated our ascent time and arrived an hour early, we took shelter in the observatory ruins from the cold north wind that raked the summit plateau. The hour passed slowly. As numb­ness crept into our bodies, conversation sagged and spirits along with it, but we weren’t going to give up on a ridiculous enterprise just because it was becoming more ridiculous by the minute.

Finally, the appointed time arrived. To emphasise the surreal nature of the occasion, I had for some reason decided that, for commemorative photographs, I would change into beach shorts and Hawaiian shirt. This was a step too far for my companion, who merely grinned at me indulgently. I grinned back through chattering teeth as he took the photographs. When I changed back into more appropriate hill gear, my fingers were too numb to tighten laces. Even at a breakneck descent speed, it took some time to restore warmth.

It was only when we reached the glen that it dawned on me that my arithmetic skills had let me down. I had omitted to take British Summer Time into account. Nepal time was currently only four and three-quarter hours ahead. Our earlier smugness had been (not for the first time) entirely misplaced.

Worse was to follow. The next day I had another revelation about world time zones. If Nepal was four and three-quarter hours ahead of BST, we were four and three-quarter hours behind Nepal. In other words, we should have been at the summit of the Ben four and three-quarter hours before 11.30am, i.e. at 6.45am.

On receiving this update, Allan shrugged resignedly, accustomed by now to the unpredictable outcomes of those escapades of mine for which he signed up. I was unrepentant. I chose to view my perfectly understandable oversight in a more constructive light. What had begun as a pointless and surreal exercise had ended in even more pointless and surreal fashion. This was an even more welcome outcome, I decided. Serendipity. Would you care to see some photographs of a shivering beach bum grinning maniacally in a Hawaiian shirt at the top of Ben Nevis at precisely 5.15 BST on 29 May 2003?