1999 Pt 2.
Settling an Injustice or Two
I found the following day easier going, shorter at just nine and a half hours. I started through the forest at the hamlet of Achriabhach on the Glen Nevis road and took in Mullach nan Coirean and Stob Ban. It was misty from the point of reaching Mullach nan Coirean and it required some detailed map and compass work to navigate the route around to Stob Ban. Once at Stob Ban I had to search out the east ridge, the most convenient, down the mountain. I descended a hundred meters on the west ridge looking for a turn off point and could not find it. I re-ascended and could clearly make out the east ridge but on the descent could not pick up the access point. I thought about taking the west ridge all the way down and pick up a path that bends back round to Glen Nevis, but this would have made it a very long day. I gave it one more attempt and just spotted the scar of a path heading east which I followed for a few paces which duly opened up to the window of the east ridge. I was pleased to find it and made the descent which was very slow going as both my knees were painful. The walk out took a further three and a half hours as I rested often. Here I began to dwell some more on what the Munros mean to me. I spend a lot of the time thinking and going over events in my life, settling old injustices. Stuff that would never normally come out and is only brought to the surface by the purity of the peace from the mountains. Barbara has a metaphor for this where she likens this kind of letting go process to a glacier slowly yielding what is beneath it over a great period of time. Today an event came to mind that happened some twenty two years previous. It had snowed and the school bus was late and whilst waiting we had helped to push a teachers car out of a snowdrift as a favour. After a further half hour we gave up on the bus and I went home and, very bravely for a twelve year old, phoned the school to say that I could not get in. The receptionist told me off and said "look some teachers have made it in from near where you live so you have no excuse." I was too young to defend myself by adding, "They had a car which we helped to push." So off I set with my friend Stephen Soward and duly arrived very late for school for a serious telling off. I guess I hated school for that kind of attitude, zero tolerance and never identifying which kids were being honest.
That evening I was out of food at the hostel so drove into Fort William to look for a meal. Like a magnet I was drawn to the McDonald's that is there. I don't know what it is about the McDonald's image but it certainly works. You know the food is unhealthy, fairly tasteless all the profit is taken out of the local micro economy and banked by the global market but nonetheless you find yourself drawn to its doors. I duly ordered a veggie burger, the only menu item that I could possibly consume, and ate it amongst the sterile American plastic image. With a name like McDonald's you perhaps could have expected a hint of Scottish atmosphere about the place. Perhaps the food could arrive in tartan coloured Styrofoam coffins and Scotland the brave could be played as you lift the lid followed by a round of the Stars and Stripes as the burger is consumed and the profits float across the Atlantic to be banked by descendants of people that once populated this naturally socialist country. Yeah I regretted going to McDonalds that night, my fault, my mistake I make no excuses as I knew I'd feel that way, it was just all too convenient and I fall for it every time.
I decided that I should only do one more day in the mountains before setting off home. I had hoped to stay longer but realised that I had over done it on the first walk and my knees were not going to forgive me in the next few days. The mountain range up Glen Nevis that I had been walking is known as 'The Mamores' and I had one final walk to do taking in a further four Munros. I reflected that this was a little ambitious and instead decided that my final walk, July the 5th, should be to finish the Laggan and Monadgloiath range of mountains which were a convenient drive away from the Glen Nevis hostel. Therefore July the 5th took in these hills which I found easier going apart from my knee troubles on the descents. The start of the walk was through forest then across open ground and was rough going in the heather covered areas. Initially it was clear and I was able to watch a Tornado fly past but I soon walked into the cloud and experienced some rain. As I ascended the outline of the Munro ducked down behind a lesser rise in the foreground, this meant I was straight down to compass navigation as I had no view of the general area to which I was aiming. In these situations it is difficult to keep following the compass as it takes no account of impassable terrain and it is tiresome to keep looking at it. Therefore I sighted the compass on a large rock protruding the immediate horizon and headed for that. When I got to it there were so many large rocks about I had to debate as to which one I had been aiming for before continuing, my rock looked so prominent from afar but on arrival it had taken refuge in the crowd. As I progressed using this method of navigation I played games with myself as to how long it would take to walk to each rock, timing myself between my geomorphologic way points. In one area I was in a large boulder filled depression where when I blew my nose it echoed back, I spent a few moment enjoying my mid-face entertainment feature. When I pulled myself onto the final ridge and turned to my left to walk it, the first Munro of the day was the triple summit of Beinn a' Chaoruinn where the middle summit was the highest. I reached this in under four hours from the start of the walk before the descent and ascent to Beinn Teallach. I went in too steep with Beinn Teallach and was a little freaked by the angle and therefore increased my pace and reached the summit some half hour sooner that my prediction. You become a good judge of time more than distance in the mountains. Often I can look at the peak I am aiming at and estimate quite accurately at what time I will get there.
I returned to the hostel that evening and spent some time leisurely strolling around. As it is at the start of a path up Ben Nevis it is popular with walkers hiking the highest of all British peaks. I watched some walkers coming off the mountain late in the day, they looked exhausted and very down. Ben Nevis is a long hard slog and is tough going to the occasional walker. I sat awhile and contemplated my efforts and a thought occurred to me that my Munro count was now locked in my mind as '108 to go' instead of '176 completed,' a very subtle change in perspective. My thoughts wandered further as to why I do this, what drives me, why this as a sport, a hobby, an obsession. I am very slow up the mountains, stopping every few paces on the steep bits to catch my breath, my knees often give me pain well beyond anything that would be described as comfortable. I constantly question why I do this on the long haul up. What am I trying to prove? Maybe to exorcise the ghosts of my childhood lack of sporting prowess. The sadistic games teachers who would organise a punishment for the last one home during a cross country run one day thwarted by me, the over weight kid and another straggler colluding to cross the finish line three abreast. Speed was the measure, not endurance, tenacity or the normalisation of physique. No games teacher saw me at my lowest point - taking ten minutes to cross a room, my father having to carry me up the stairs to use the bathroom. Teachers only ever saw a note after a week off school explaining my absence due to an asthma attack. The next games lesson would be excused by a further note from home 'Please excuse Stephen from games today as he is just getting over an asthma attack,' a note that I could have done without as by then I was capable of doing some light sport but that was not in the vocabulary of school. You had to be up there, a winner otherwise you were a skiver. My conscious suddenly became aware of this line of thought, where it was leading what it was trying to sort out for me, what it meant. Walking the Munros is a sport where nobody is there with a stopwatch, nobody is questioning your skill, discussions about time are brief. To have completed the Munros means that you have got yourself to the top of each one, that is all - nothing else is questioned.
The following morning was my last at Glen Nevis hostel. Breakfast is supplied as part of the package here and I hung on to eat it before setting off. Due to the small hostel budget it was not very inspiring but in the previous two days it had been a real energy boost for the day. Crianlarich hostel does not offer breakfast so my first day of walking had started with just a packet of crisps for breakfast, which may partially explain why I found the first day of this trip so tough. As I ate my breakfast I could not help but notice a chap quietly praying before tackling his. Was it just his faith or a plead with god to allow him to survive the food? I shall never know.
Getting Myself Into Shape
Shortly after this trip I flew to Canada to spend the summer with Barbara. On a couple of occasions we drove down into the USA to walk in a mountain range called the Adriondacks. I soon discovered, from Barbara, that there are a series of mountains in this range known as the forty sixers where each peak is above the 4000 foot mark. Barbara teased me about this convinced that I was going to start making a note of the ones I did. I resisted, the Munros being a challenge enough.
Due to these walks and others in Canada, my left hip started to give me quite a bit of pain accompanied by the area of my back between my shoulder blades. At first Barbara thought that I had legs of different lengths, which would explain the painful hip. If this were true then I would be akin to a haggis who are known to have legs shorter on one side to allow them to traverse the hills. However after lying on the floor while Barbara pulled and prodded me she announced that it would appear that both my legs were of equal length so she booked me in with her massage lady. I was very nervous about this, as I had never been to such a thing before. Before the start of the massage I explained my physical problems to the lady, a Francophone by the name of Suzette, she listened intently and told me what she could do before finally saying,
"I'll just leave you to undress and I'll be back shortly."
"Umm you want me to take everything off?" I was panicking.
"Well it would really help to be able to work on your hip."
As she left the room I pondered this, being naked was not really the problem it was more the fear of certain things happening if I was being massaged by a lady who I could not fail but to notice was quite attractive. I looked at the couch and figured that I'd be okay, face down and if my worst fears happened everything would be out of sight. So naked I went onto the couch. After a few minutes Suzette reappeared and said "Ah, I forgot to say I need you on your back first." 'Oh buggering heck' I thought, however I survived the three hour massage without a murmur of an embarrassment. Whilst working on my lower back she found that my sacrum was tilted and was probably the cause of my hip pain, I am slightly out of shape.
I visited Canada again at Christmas and went for a repeat massage with Suzette, she is quite a spiritual lady and told me that I have a 'totem' animal of the deer. This is quite interesting as the information came out of the blue and I must admit I get a real thrill out of seeing deer and I have a similar personality trait of looking on with interest but always wanting to get away. I also learnt some basic skiing. Firstly Barbara took me out cross-country skiing then she paid for a down hill lesson for me. On the cross country skiing Barbara taught me how to shuffle along and how to go up and down hills. On the first down hill part there was a sharp right turn at the base, as I approached it a thought along the lines of 'oh damn I did not teach him how to turn' came into Barbara's head. In my head came the thought 'Ah a right turn, all I need to do is lean to the right - I've seen it on ski Sunday.' Wrong! Leaning right to turn right is not what you do, in fact you twist your left leg to the right to angle the ski. So I ended up in a heap.
Munro Count: 176 out of 284
