day 6 scotland trip easy chilled ride

After a long day in the saddle the day before and minus 5 tempertures in the morning i took it upon myself to have a big breakfast and chill out in the morning and go for a spin in the afternoon. Mike, Helen and Stu were all heading out on a walk up ben nevis, ive been up there twice already and find the tourist route pretty boring that and a minus 20 windchill on the summit put me off that idea. So i ate loads, drank loads of fluids and chopped some wood for the starting the evening fire. I had a what mountain bike magazine from a year ago where they did a few rides around the fort william area, i had already scanned through it and had deceided i'd do the ride in it upto the scottish cic mountaineering hut which sits at the bottom of the north face on ben nevis. The hut is just over 2000 feet above sea level and is suppose to be a cracking decent down.
So i set off at 1pm from 78 feet above sea level at our cabin, rode into leanachan forest at the north face car park at set off up the ben nevis path, this is mega steep but is all rideable in 1st gear if you fit all the way to 800 foot where it levels off. The views from here are ace looking down to fort william.

Looking back up the climb to the north face of ben nevis, singletrack path all the way with plenty of stream bunnyhops.

The path looks nice and easy from the picture above but its steeper than it looks and climbs another 1000 foot from where the picture was took, once i got to the 1500 foot mark i noticed how cold it was getting, it was well below freezing the floor was frozen solid and the wind wasnt helping. As i was looking at the amazing views of the north face whilst riding i managed to ride into a boulder which sent me over the handlebars and i head butted a rock, i got up laughing at myself for my lack of concentration, it was pretty lucky really as i didnt even get my arms out and i cracked my helmet, i need a new one anyway.
The path slowly dies away to nothing and you need to scramble over boulders to the hut, i deceided i couldnt be bothered with that as i didnt plan on staying there long, i stopped my ascent 100 meter from the hut at 2036 feet.

Time for the decent it had taken my over an hour to climb up. The decent is ace its technical singletrack in the way you have to bunny hop over gaping holes that streams run through all of it is ridable if you have good technical skills, i could see people getting alot of flat tyres by not quite making the bunny hops over the streams. The 1000 foot singletrack decent to the fence was over quickly and i took a right onto a fire road which took me down to the highest point of the world champs red route course and carried on with that decent back to the north face car park.
All in all i had climbed over 2000 feet and dropped the same in just over 10 miles.

A easy ride with excellent views, could be made alot longer by linking it up to other routes in the forest