When I woke all was quiet, so I knew it was no longer raining, I could see that the inner tent was covered with little beads of moisture where my breath had condensed overnight, it must be quite cool outside. I lay for a while wondering how I could get out of my sleeping bag, and into my trousers without brushing against it and getting wet.

Outside, a surprise was waiting, everywhere was covered in a thick hoar frost, and the tents were coated in ice. The rain that had collected in the folds the night before, had turned to ice, and together with the coating of frost had made them quite stiff, in fact if we had taken the guy ropes off I'm sure they would have remained standing. As yet the sun had not reached our campsite, we were in the shadow of the mountains, but the sky was blue, and the mountain tops around us were bathed in sunshine, it looked like being a fine day.

After breakfast it took longer than usual to get the tents packed as we had to try and get rid of as much ice as possible before rolling them up. We had camped about a mile short of Lundavra, from where the way forks, offering two alternative routes into Fort William, either four miles or six and a half via Glen Nevis. We chose the later, plenty of time was available, and good views of Ben Nevis were promised from this route. This proved to be the case, the top of the Ben had a dusting of fresh snow and wispy white clouds were drifting around the slopes. There were lots of 'ups & downs' in these last few miles, but it was worth the effort, it is a splendid finish to the walk.

We were in the town just after eleven, after leaving our packs at the station we had a wander round the shops for a while, and called into a cafe for lunch, and later a pint in the Volunteer.

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