BENNEVIS

HEN WINTER’S SETTLING IN, a mountaineer’s thoughts inevitably turn to The Ben. It’s not the only Ben in Scotland, of course, but if you mention The Ben, everyone knows which one you mean. Not all agree, however, on what the derivation of ‘Nevis” is. The consensus is that it comes from the old Erse , meaning ‘terrible’. Which prompts me to sound a note of caution. This account appears in a winter edition of , which is predominantly a hillwalkers’ magazine. But is The Ben a hillwalkers’ mountain? A good question, and one the answer to which depends both on