A Head For Heights

After James Robertson, John Williams went up three years later to search for valuable minerals, of which he found none.

In 1818, John Keats, the poet, made the ascent, describing it as “mounting ten St Pauls without the convenience of a staircase”.

The first of many strange objects being taken to the top of Ben Nevis came in 1911, when a Model T Ford was driven up the Mountain Track, taking five days to get up and one to get down.

In May 2006, John Muir Trust volunteers discovered the remains of a piano below a cairn.

They deduced it had been carried and pushed up by a team of removal men from Dundee in 1986.

Fifteen years before that, Highland Games athlete Kenny Campbell carried an organ to the summit.

Nowadays, the annual Ben Nevis hill race still attracts hundreds of runners, the extreme form of getting up the mountain having its origins in the late 19th century.

The north face of Ben Nevis is a different matter – here, ice-climbing in Scotland was pioneered and many noted climbers of the early 20th century were attracted to the gullies, buttresses and ridges.