Scottish Mountain of Ben Nevis Reaches New Heights

At the western end of the mountain range of the Grampians (Scottish Gaelic: Am Monadh) stands the highest mountain in Scotland and the British Isles. Ben Nevis (Scottish Gaelic: Beinn Nibheis) is visited by many thousands of people each year who enjoy outstanding views and the breathtaking beauty of the surrounding glens. Guide books for Ben Nevis will inform you that the mountain stands at 4,409 feet (1,344 metres) above sea level. Now this will have to be revised because as reported in the Scotsman newspaper the mountain has “grown” by 1 metre to 1.345m in the last 65 years. To be precise the new height is exactly 1,344.527m (4,411.1778215ft) but is rounded up to 1,345m officially.

The new Ordnance Survey (OS) calculation, however, does not reflect any geological movement but is due to improvements in technology resulting in a more accurate reading than when Ben Nevis was last surveyed in 1949. So the mountain is now bigger than thought, but remains just as beautiful. The mountain is actually all that remains of a volcano that met a violent end about 350 million years ago. Impressive as it is Ben Nevis is now all that is left of the imploded inner dome of the volcano and then subsequently shaped by glaciation during the Ice Age.