Model T Ford to scale Ben Nevis for second time

Some people have gone to great lengths - and heights - to make an unusual ascent of Ben Nevis. Now car enthusiasts will recreate one of the most bizarre climbs, by taking a Model T Ford up Britain's highest mountain. Over the years a bed, a wheelbarrow and a piano have made it the 4,409ft to the summit. But in 1911 an Edinburgh motorist, Henry Alexander, drove a 20hp Model T Ford up the pony track to the top.

The Alexanders, who ran cinemas and dance halls in the city, had added a Ford Agency to their enterprises and Henry wanted to demonstrate the car was up to the toughest tests in the country. To commemorate the centenary of the remarkable achievement, a Model T Ford will again find itself on the ben's summit on 18 May. This time, due to environmental considerations, they will not drive up but dismantle the car and reassemble it on the mountain top. It will be carried up the slopes with the help of about 100 volunteers with hillwalking experience.

The original ascent took six weeks to prepare and check a drive-able route with a team of men working tirelessly to lay down a timber path right to the summit, placing bridging planks over impassible gullies and streams. Mr Alexander set off from a farmhouse on the Spean Bridge Road on 9 May and completed the climb five and a half days later. He followed the pony track, also known as the Mountain Track, which begins at Achintee on the east side of Glen Nevis just over a mile from Fort William town center.

It zig-zags steeply to the saddle by Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe, known as the halfway lochan, at 570 meters, then ascends the remaining 700 meters up the stony west flank of the mountain in a series of larger zig-zags. The car frequently sank axle-deep into the boggy ground and had to be hauled out by rope. A newspaper report from the time said one false turn of the wheel would have meant a fall that would have destroyed the car and killed the driver. It took Mr Alexander three days to drive the car to the halfway point and two more days to cover the rest of the distance to the summit.