Ben Nevis is an amazing place and I am learning in great detail more about just how amazing it is this week. After a planning day and two days of training for the North Face Survey my brain feels fit to burst with new information.

After winning the contract to manage a team of eight climbers for the survey we are now half way through the training. We have expert botanists and geologists showing us what to record and the technology for doing so most easily (a very handy new app from Midland Valley ) and we are supplying the access know how. The botany and geology is quite daunting but equally fascinating. The access is a brilliant mix of mountaineering light touch techniques with a scattering of MRT and IRATA techniques thrown in too. When was the last time you abseiled on 400m ropes down a loose wet cliff?

The survey is sponsored by Mammut who gave is 2.5km of rope, helmets and jackets and has been funded by SNH and Herritage Lottery Fund. The Nevis Landscape is managing the whole thing along with many other projects in a programme of work over the next five years. It has been great fun so far and the team can not wait to get properly stuck into it next week. The media are quite interested in it too - 

http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/huge-survey-of-ben-nevis-north-face-planned/0011276/

http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2014/08/06/climbing-team-hoping-for-surprise-finds-in-survey-of-ben-nevis-north-face

Look out for it in The Times and on the BBC. Three separate BBC teams are coming up next week!