24-03-15, 12:33 AM
Today I climbed my first mountain of the year. Well, the first two, actually. [color=rgb(49, 52, 50)]Cruach Ardrain and Beinn Tulaichean were the order of the day. And what a day it was. It was a REALLY hard walk. Up and down, up again, down again. All day. The weather went from raining, to heavy snow, to blazing sunshine, some fog, wind, t-shirt warm and down jacket cold. Typical Scottish weather then.[/color]
[/size][/color]
[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]We stopped for something to eat behind a large crag. My mate said to me "have a look at this", and I stood up to see. Unfortunatly the wind took my bag, which was sitting beside me, and fired it down the mountain. Like a scene from Fawlty Towers, my camera bag came flying out the rucksack. Then the camera came flying out the camera bag. And they all took a tumble about 500 vertical feet down the mountain. We could do nothing but wait to see when, and if, they would stop. They did, after traversing snow, rock, moss and more.[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]My mate felt guilty as it was him that said - look over here. He insisted on retrieving it. Who am I to say no? I did get a picture of him about 30ft from the camera bag. Its the first image.[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]On the way back we took right fork instead of the left. Basically because it was heavy snow on the way up and we never even seen the fork. That resulted in a questionable scramble and climb down some serious faces. There was one point we had to jump from moss on to a little pointed rock. It was only 5ft down, but getting it wrong meant a broken bone at best. I was a bit apprehensive, but did it anyway. The thought of climbing back up those faces did not appeal. [/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]It took us about 8 hours and I recon we covered 18-20km at least. [/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]My right knee is gubbed, my legs are tired and I'm just about falling asleep. All in all it was a great day.[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)]
[/size][/color]
[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]We stopped for something to eat behind a large crag. My mate said to me "have a look at this", and I stood up to see. Unfortunatly the wind took my bag, which was sitting beside me, and fired it down the mountain. Like a scene from Fawlty Towers, my camera bag came flying out the rucksack. Then the camera came flying out the camera bag. And they all took a tumble about 500 vertical feet down the mountain. We could do nothing but wait to see when, and if, they would stop. They did, after traversing snow, rock, moss and more.[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]My mate felt guilty as it was him that said - look over here. He insisted on retrieving it. Who am I to say no? I did get a picture of him about 30ft from the camera bag. Its the first image.[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]On the way back we took right fork instead of the left. Basically because it was heavy snow on the way up and we never even seen the fork. That resulted in a questionable scramble and climb down some serious faces. There was one point we had to jump from moss on to a little pointed rock. It was only 5ft down, but getting it wrong meant a broken bone at best. I was a bit apprehensive, but did it anyway. The thought of climbing back up those faces did not appeal. [/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]It took us about 8 hours and I recon we covered 18-20km at least. [/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size][/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)][/size]My right knee is gubbed, my legs are tired and I'm just about falling asleep. All in all it was a great day.[/color][color=rgb(49, 52, 50)]
Not quite sure what to do with my early mid-life crisis. Ideas on a post card to P.O.BOX 150...