UKC

Been a few years since I climbed on the Ben, and my climbing days are now over, so I'd like to tick the CMD Arete while I can. I see two possible starts, Achintee and Distillery or thereabouts.
(We used to park in the golf club car park in the 80s, I guess that's no longer an option.)

So/which and where is the best start/route these days? 

North Face Car Park at Torlundy.  Probably now pay and display.

We started at the North Face car park, I imagine that's still the place to be.

Just to throw something a bit different in, it's quite possible to start from the waterslide carpark at the top of the Glen Nevis road, and head up Carn Dearg then on to the summit - or head over Meall Cumhann for an extra scramble on the way up.

You can come down the glen to Steall and back via the gorge path - or extend the circuit over Aonach Mor and come back down to Glen Nevis via Aonach Beag.

I've done the 'big four' circuit from there a couple of times, it's a bit odd coming up a completely deserted hillside to suddenly arrive at the summit crowds on Ben Nevis! It's not a huge circuit in terms of distance, but you do lose a fair bit of height between Carn Mor Dearg and the Aonachs.

I walked from here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/R8MnPQ7TJUNqKbMr7

but it was quite a long time ago.

The usual route is anticlockwise from the North Face car park, descending the Tourist Route on the Ben to the half-way lochan then cutting down near its outflow stream to rejoin the approach at NN148749. But a nice alternative is to walk as far as the CIC, go up Ledge Route, round the cliff edge to the Ben, and down via CMD.

Surely you meant to write " the usual route is clockwise" ?

Your alternative looks good. That would miss the mile of steep swamp on the short cut from the tourist route to the dam .  Though that might bring back fond memories of the old boggy ways from the golf course before the north face trail.

I did indeed; brain pretty dead after a day of scientific writing.

Skog's suggestion is also an interesting alternative. I used the waterslide approach a couple of times to climb on the Little Brenva face, and another time to do CMD and the Aonachs, but never all four 4000ers.

Do you mean clockwise from NF car park?

We used golf course at beginning of last week for 2 nights at CIC. Was honestly ideal - under railway, follow 'walkers and climbers' sign. Boggy for the 20 yards through the trees on far side of the fairways to the start of the uphill but that thrash up through the woods was so much better than 20 years ago - probably due to less footfall and a mix of paths following downhill bike trails. Possibly even quicker than from NF CP; genuinely recommend, especially for overnighting.