Ben Nevis North Face

The entire North Face of Ben Nevis from Carn Dearg Meadhonach.

I lived in Fort William at the very foot of Ben Nevis for six years and during this time I came to know the mountain very well and had climbed it by a variety of routes. Like so many other climbers before me, it was the north face of Ben Nevis that held the greatest fascination. Extending for over two kilometres, it contains some of the country’s finest rock architecture and supports many of its most challenging mountaineering routes.

I had taken numerous separate photographs of individual sections of the face in both 35mm and 645 format, but none ever conveyed the enormity of the mountain. When I started to work with the Fuji GX617 I realised its potential to capture the entire north face of Ben Nevis in a single panoramic image. I carefully planned the shoot using as much technology as was available to me, and using large scale maps, compass and GPS, I established the ideal viewpoint just twenty metres below the adjacent summit of Carn Dearg Meadhonach.

The final image captures all the main features of the mountain and includes the North East Buttress, Observatory Ridge, Observatory Buttress, Tower Ridge, Coire na Ciste, Carn Dearg Buttress, The Castle and the major gullies. The summit cairn and trig point can just be seen on the print above the ascending line of Observatory Buttress.