Only Young Twice

After such a great day on Dumyat and a couple of other walks nearby, I decided it was high time to induct Rex into hiking munros. And since Ben Lomond was the first munro I did.. surely it was the most logical place to start?

Having looked a few days in advance, the weather was forecast to be pretty welcoming on Ben Lomond and somehow the torrential rain on the drive over there the night before failed to arouse my suspicions. We had a peaceful night camped at the side of Loch Lomond and woke up to find… that the good weather was now expected the next day. But in the spirit of Properly Organised Fun, we had a schedule to keep(!) and we agreed to give it a go (me enthusiastically, Rex slightly less so), accepting we might turn around if it was miserable on the hill.

The walk started off as all good walks do – with plenty of the ritual stops to Faff Around with layers of clothing, length of poles, tightness of boot-lacing, eat one extra cereal bar, achieve the optimal combination of hat/gloves/neckthing etc – all part of the sport of hiking. We soon hit our stride on the hill, wishing the other hikers a Happy New Year, asking folk on the way down what weather had greeted them at the top and trying to ignore their bleak descriptions and weather-beaten expressions.

The good thing about Ben Lomond is once you’re above about half way up, you can turn around at any point and get a great view down the loch. There were a few moments with some nice light and moody skies which had me reaching for the camera.

As we ploughed on, the wind intensified. Rex took to chanting “Fish and Chips! Fish and Chips!” to try and fool his body into believing the dinner we would have afterwards would make this all worthwhile. We cowered for a wee while behind a massive boulder to eat our sandwiches, feeling smug that we’d nabbed the only sheltered(-ish) place on the hillside, and mustering up some resolve to carry on.

At about 3/4 of the way up Rex stopped walking. I walked back to him to ask if he wanted to turn back, presuming he’d surely say yes and we could get ourselves off this very windy hill. Unfortunatelyyyy, he stubbornly said lets carry on to the top (gaaahh) so after a little rest, onwards we went. There was a last battle with the wind to get past the false summit of the hill, near the top, and amazingly at the actual summit there was.. nothing. The wind disappeared for ten minutes. No view, only cloud – the standard welcome. But the trig point came in handy.

We (fooolishly) decided to take the more interesting route down, scrambling down the other side of the hill and looping back around. This route looks shorter on the map, but being a winding upy-downy path rather than the motorway we’d used for the route up.. it took a LOT longer. We didn’t see anyone else on this path down so we were definitely the only two idiots to go for this option in the late afternoon. The wind picked up again with more power this time, forcing us to have a couple of sit-downs while the strongest gusts passed.

Rex eventually reached the end of his tolerance with the smirry-rain being whipped into his face and opted for the goggles. Not even goggles could hide his Fed-Up-ness though.

I timed it and can confirm that the walk down officially took forever. Each time I checked the map we weren’t nearly as far along as I had guessed. We were in full hill-purgatory. I took a couple of snaps along the way but mostly we were just marching in a huff at being so wet, cold, tired, wind-battered and far from the van.

We did eventually get below the cloud level, so the wind started to dry us off a little… only for the heavens to open on us when we were about half an hour from the van, just as we were turning the head torches on. Ideal. Thanks, Scotland. When we fiiinallly made it back to the van in the pitch dark, we looked like two drowned otters, layer upon layer of clothing soaked through and days of wet-kit-in-van to look forward to.

For those of you who are concerned, Rex did eventually get his Fish and Chips. But no, it probably wasn’t worth it.

I had a couple of weeks away from the hills while I visited friends and family over Christmas, so as the New Year approached I was itching to hike up something. To add to the excitement, Rex, who ranks highly among my best friends, came over from Nashville to visit for two weeks. You might well ask what someone from Tennessee was thinking choosing the first two weeks in January to tour Scotland in a campervan – we all asked the same thing. But despite my best efforts to describe Scotland’s wet windy cold with chilling damp air that creeps under your clothes and into your bones, Rex was undeterred (/brave? /stupid?) and came over anyway.

I’d suggested to my Dad and my Sister that we could bring in the New Year on the shoulder of Dumyat, where we’d be able to see the Stirling fireworks which were being staged from the Wallace monument. Dumyat is a fond familiar hill to my family, with Mum and Dad dragging my sister and me up it time and again when we were kids. We had our share of dramas on the hill with plenty of “My feeettt are tiiiirrreed”s and that time my Mum famously took a dive off the side of the hill – no doubt more concerned with me and my sister not falling than her own footing – and my dad galloping down the slope to catch her before she reached a sizeable drop.

After a few drinks in the van with some card games and laughs, we donned the boots and the layers at about 11.30 and set off up the hill. It was ridicuously warm for the time of year and time of night, with the breeze feeling decidedly un-Scottish – thought at least it could still Blow Away the Cobwebs as my Mum would say. The fireworks were good, even thought they lasted only a few minutes – nice to have a bit of a marker for the turn of the year. We had a sip of whisky and quietly toasted my Mum. After a really rough year (understatement) it felt like the Right Place to bring in 2022.

It was on New Year’s Day though that Dumyat really put on a show. Rex and I set off in the morning to walk to the summit and test out his new hiking books on a gentle hill. The sun did its thing shining through the clouds and… well I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

But don’t be fooled by how idyllic it looks in the pics – it was officially Blowin a Hoolie on the top! If that doesn’t blow away the cobwebs of 2021, I don’t know what could.

It feels like ages ago I walked these hills a few weeks back, and a million miles away since I’m typing this in London. These two sit on the east of the A9, the road up to Aviemore and Inverness, and are part of what’s known as the Drumochter ‘Alps’. In and of themselves they’re not the most exciting hills, but they’re munros so they’re on my list, and they are shorter walks which comfortably fit within the December days. The weather was generally misty or cloudy pretty much everywhere, though the forecast suggested that the clouds might open up a bit on these hills, and I was hoping to get a glimpse of the views over to Ben Alder that Beinn Udlamain can offer.

The hike up this one was pretty uneventful, just a jeep track then a bit of a steady slog up a heathery slope. I was up to the top of Sgairneach Mhor first, and just as I was wandering over to the cairn, the winter sun came out to join me.

I toddled along towards Beinn Udlamain which involved a fair amount of descent before the schlep back up to the next top. The trudge up the slope took me fully into the mist which was hanging thickly, so no view for me, quelle surprise. Beinn Udlamain actually means ‘the gloomy hill’ and it was living up to its name.

I met a couple of walkers at the top of this one, who asked if I was doing all 4 munros, like they were. I felt slightly less pleased with my 2 munros for the day, but hey ho I’m not a morning person and I was having a leisurely amble rather than a full day march. Anyway, after the other walkers marched off, I snaffled my sandwich in the shelter of the cairn with some tea before starting my amble down.

Often I enjoy the way out more than the way back on my walks, but on this one I had an absolutely great time on the way down. My route was off-path down the moorland slopes covered in luscious, spongey heather and grasses. I put on a calm folk album – The Living Mountain by Jenny Sturgeon, which was inspired by the book of the same name by Nan Shepherd which is like a memoir or a love letter to the Cairngorm mountains. And as I sauntered along zigzagging my way down the slope like the slowest skier imaginable.. the blue sky showed up. Absolute bliss. No where I’d rather have been.

I was back to the van all too soon, but I drove on westwards towards Loch Laggan in hunt of a place to camp and the sky put on a stunning show. All in all a very good day.

I’m miles behind on the blog so I’ve still not written about the second walk I did with Ali on the weekend he was up in November – the day after our sunny walk in Kintail. Maybe I’ve been avoiding writing about it because I’m still traumatised by the experience.

Ali was choosing the walk for the Sunday, and I assumed – naively – that’d we probably take in a leisurely walk since this was day 2. I thought wrong! Ali picked Nevis – biggest Ben in Scotland. And he chose the ‘ledge’ route up which is the scrambling route up the North Face. This route is generally classed as a grade 1 scramble (easy), though some sources consider it a grade 2 (bit harder).

The route started with a long walk in to the CIC hut at the base of the North Face. This is also the start of a lot of climbing routes up Nevis, which we had to be careful not to stray on to. Fortunately for me, Ali was chief navigator, and had done this before, albeit in the early morning dark.

Before long our route up took us over some slab rock, which was wet and extremely slippery. Ali had mentioned there was one tricky bit over slab. We went over one and I asked “was it that one?” (meaning “please tell me it was that one”) but sadly no, that was just the warm up.

Just a wee bit further on, but quite a bit higher up, we came to The Slab. The pictures really don’t do this badboy justice. But please take my word for it – there were practically no holds, the rock was so slippery it was like ice, and there was a big drop waiting if you were to slip.

Ali went first. He got halfway up the slab, and paused. I asked “how is it?”… “Shit!” he called back. Yikes. He was up and over to the other side admirably quickly though. My turn. I managed to find the first couple of teeny tiny toe holds ok, but was pulse-quickeningly aware of the near zero grip I had on the rock. From this angle, that slip slide over the edge and down to the rocks below looked inevitable. I tried to find the next hold and realised… there were none. I was at the point where Ali had called out that it was shit – which I now understood was because of the zero holds – this rock did not want to be climbed.

It was around about now that I really thought I was going to go over the edge. I tried to shout something but my brain couldn’t assemble a word so something like “nfjdkslah” came out of my mouth. Hearing that aloud, I was able to revise it to “fuck”. “Fuck. Fuck. Shit. FUCK.” I was very scared. Unable to go forward, unable to go back, my body decided instead to flood me with adrenaline and tense every muscle which instantly fatigued so I could barely hold on. My first experience of cragfast – being stuck mid scramble and the freak out causing all your muscles to stop working. I really thought this was going to be my first major incident and trip to the hospital.

Helpfully, Ali climbed back down a bit towards me. “Where are the holds?!” I shouted. He confirmed that, basically, there were none and the next step was above my reach. But the only way is up if you don’t want to go down, and I was losing grip where I was. I pressed myself away from the rock enough to lean on my knees and wriggle up. I finally reached a teeny tiny piece of rock to hold on to, which in that moment felt enormous compared to what I had a second ago. I hung onto that for a minute and forced myself to breathe, willing my muscles to relax.

Thankfully I was now over the worst and the rest of the slab had much more reasonable holds. Ali offered me his hand but taking it seemed preposterous – surely we’d both end up sliding off the mountain?! I continued my belly wriggle and eventually clawed my way off the other side of the slab. It looked a lot steeper from the top.

We were now officially over the hardest part of this route. Ali led on and the rest of the scramble was pretty fun – not too easy, and fun choosing your route up the rock, but decidedly more in my preferred category of “high risk of a skinned knee and bruised confidence” as opposed to “meaningful risk of death”.

The weather was worsening, but we were mercifully sheltered by the mountain because the wind was coming from the other side. When we topped out onto the ridge we got the full force of the wind blowing rain into our faces. We donned the waterproof troos and trekked to the summit of Ben Nevis.

What’s the view from the highest point in the UK you ask?

Given the weather and the time, we decided not to do the ridge/scramble over to Carn Mor Dearg – which is also a munro, so I’ll have to come back and do this again. Instead we started the very long walk down – as it was we knew we’d be walking the last of this route in the dark.

The route down was a fair chunk further than I had appreciated. We were taking the tourist path down, which meant we would come part way down the mountain, then loop the whole way back around to the base of the North Face, then back down to where we left the car at the North Face car park. I thought we must be getting close to where we had started our scramble, but Ali checked the map and confirmed that, no, we still had 10k to walk. Hahaha. We debated walking down into town, which would be closer, and getting a cab back to the car, but that would feel like defeat and the faff of finding a taxi wasn’t appealing. We soldiered on, upping the pace.

By the time we made it back to the base of the North Face it was headtorch time. After a couple of moments of uncertainty – this area looked very different from this direction and in the dark – we triumphantly found the CIC hut, and our long path back to the car – only 90 minutes to go!! Our spirits lifted since we were on the home straight, and I ate my second sandwich while we walked to distract from my tired feet.

So there we go. I survived my first scary scramble, and with some bruised knees lived to – after several weeks of procrastination – tell the tale.

I obviously can’t walk the hills every day, it’s important to have some rests along the way. And I’m not trying to blast through the munros as quickly as possible – the aim is to enjoy them. So I’m choosing the days with good (/less bad) weather, and not forcing myself to trudge up when I just Don’t Feel Like It.

And what do I do on my rest days? Well I’m glad you asked. I often head to a swimming pool (for the showers as well as the swim!), I drop into yoga classes wherever I can find them, I hole up in a cafe for a while with a book.

And sometimes I just stop.

If you’re not used to it, it’s a funny feeling to just stop. It takes a while to overcome the urge to do Something Productive, and feel the value in slowing the pace. This isn’t something that comes naturally to me – often my instinct is to carry on doing Things until I hit exhaustion and my body forces me to lie down.

I didn’t actually plan to stop this week, but I camped a night at the edge of Loch Creran, and I was dumbstruck but what a beautiful night it turned out to be.

Outside the van amidst the stunning view, crisp clear air and bright moonlight there was just.. silence. Very few folk come down that road at night. There was barely a breath of wind. I was alone with just the odd chirrup of birds and chatter of geese.

The whole place had a feeling of calm. It really made me think about how lucky and grateful I am to be here, with my van and the freedom to visit places like this.

I woke up the next morning, and didn’t want to leave.

I spent a while watching a heron through my binoculars with my coffee. And with a small level of faff I was also able to take a photo through a binocular lens to get the level of zoom I wanted 😂

After breakfast I decided I wasn’t for moving, so I settled in for the day to stay and watch the view develop over the top of my book. And like a 21st century budget version of Monet’s haystacks, I took a series of photos every time I looked up and the light had changed the scene again. You’re welcome. 😄

I’m not sure I can pick a favourite.

My Dad came up to visit! I was very excited to see him, and not just because he agreed to take a car full of stuff I wasn’t using back to storage aka his garage (thanks Dad!!).

Dad was keen to do a Munro with me, and requested we pick an easier one since he hasn’t hiked a Munro in around 40 years (there aren’t v many munros in Lancashire). I suggested Schiehallion because we had unfinished business with this hill. We had intended to climb it one New Years Day when I was about 6 or 7 but turned back before we even got to the foot of the hill because the wind was flying me like a kite. So it felt right for us to come back and do this one together. From a glance at the book (really just a glance) this hike sounded manageable. It’s a walk straight up the ridge, what could go wrong?

We stayed up in Pitlochry – Dad stayed in a very nice hotel and I stayed in a car park 😄 – and set out at 9am, excited. The road to Schiehallion was a bit too eventful. I met a logger at a very narrow point in the road with a drop to the side. I squeezed over as far as I could, but pretty much cried when he edged past me, 1.5 inches from the side of my beautiful vehicle/home. 😩 I came out unscathed but unhappy for the experience.

When we set out walking, it was a lovely day. Some sun breaking through clouds, and barely a breath of wind. We were pretty excited on the way up.

We trudged up some steeper sections and the nice weather faded away taking some of our enthusiasm with it. It turned misty with a damp chill in the air. Not long after we had crested the ridge, the path vanished into a boulderfield. And not just any boulderfield, but quartzite boulderfield, which is so slippery in the wet that it’s like trying to hop over ice boulders. We kept seeing a path, which would vanish again after 3 steps leaving us to toddle precariously over the slippy rocks. I hadn’t read about this bit in the book. It was around about now when Dad stopped talking to me 😅

We stopped for a sandwich, donned the waterproof troos, and soldiered on. We eventually found a better path, though this led us to a scramble up to the summit which we hadn’t bargained for. Anyway when we got there it was the usual *could be anywhere* photo.

We met someone at the summit who had found a better route through the boulders on the way up. After he took a photo for us, we followed him down – Dad picked up the pace, clearly keen to get out of the bouldery mess.

On the way down, when we were just far enough there’s no way we’d be going back up, the wind blew the mist off the top. Gaaah. But I was happy to have sun shining on us again.

I’d been telling Dad on the way up about Brocken Spectres, which are an unusual phenomenon when the sun casts your shadow onto mist with a rainbow orb around it. Dad was a bit confused for a while about what was so unusual about “rock inspectors” on mountains 😂. I was merrily looking towards the sunshine when my brain put together that we had sun, mist, and us in the middle. I turned round and shouted “LOOK INTO THE MIST!!!”. We each had our own Brocken Spectres – first time I’d seen them and WOW. So so cool. I was snapping away and Dad was busy making snow angel arms with his shadow.

The Brocken Spectres faded as the mist thinned out. And all of a sudden it was a beautifully sunny day! We stopped for our second sandwiches and basked in the view for a while, a bit giddy from the stunning turn in the weather.

We toddled down the hill on our tired legs, getting back to the car park just as dusk was falling. We headed back to Pitlochry – me having a run in with a coach this time, who aggressively drove towards me while I was reversing blind in the pitch black hoping the road would widen up. I’ve now struck this road off my map.

We finished off the day with a massive curry, happy that Schiehallion was now well and truly conquered.

I’m a million miles behind on the blog so I’ll make this a short one, even though this was a long walk which took me three attempts.

The first day I woke up bright and early to do this walk, my whole body screamed no and demanded I get back into bed. So I did. The next day I felt more on board with the idea, so I headed up to Blair Atholl, got my rusting bike off the van and hopped on. It was fine for a few miles, then the path became sloppy wet mud with a liberal coating of wet leaves. With my back wheel spinning, I decided this wasn’t going to work and headed back to the van in a huff.

Instead, I headed up to Glenmore and had a few days camping in the forest by Loch Morlich, where I did Very Little. It’s a gorgeous spot up there, and I made a friend of Mr Robin who took a shine to my bike and was very interested in trying to enter my back window.

Anyhoo I came back to Carn a’ Chlamain a few days later with more energy and determination to get this guy in the bag. I struck out on foot for the long walk up to the hill, though it turns out I could have cycled it had I not confused two different routes. *facepalm*. Anyway at least I would now be able to take the non-cycleable route on the way back.

The walk out to the hill took about 2 hours, then there was a long slog up a never-ending ridge to the summit. And when I got there? You know the drill by now.

That’s all I’ve got to say on this one. I’m not bitter about this hill at all.