#munrobagging

My trip to the Scottish Highlands, where I lost my mind and found the truth.

“Scotland exists to challenge you and push you to your limits” – I think they meant physically, but for me the mental challenges were more intense. My ambition when in breath-taking Glencoe, the beautiful jewel of the Scottish Highlands, was to bag my first two Munro’s (Scottish mountain peaks that are over 4k feet), to paddle board across Loch Lomond and to reconnect with myself on the deepest level. Which all happened. And it was exactly how I thought it would be – wonderfully strenuous. I really did have the best time but often the silence became deafening, and the paralysing stillness sent me into both a blissful state and a spiral of self-doubt, fear and anxiety. 

“...what greeted me was beyond the words, beyond the rhythm and beyond the poetry of the songs I had chosen.”

The drive into Glencoe was something else. I had of course constructed what I thought was THE BEST ethereal playlist to match the surroundings - but what greeted me was beyond the words, beyond the rhythm and beyond the poetry of the songs I had chosen. The beauty was more than I had anticipated. For the second time in my life, I had been brought to tears by natures beauty. So much so I had to pull over the car… There are no words for the intensity I felt. Maybe it was the long drive or the fatigue of the Loch Lomond paddle boarding, but the feeling was like no other.

On the second day, after spending a wonderful night in a camping pod, I wanted to take on Buachaille Etive Mór – a stunning monument of mother earth. The conditions on the day I went to tackle the magnificent beast were far from perfect, but as a resilient Cumbrian, I wasn’t going to let a light rain put me off.

The mountain towers above a tiny bothy (a lttle house), which has to be the most photographed house in Scotland – something that was instantly pointed out to me when I posted a picture of it on Instagram! To me though, the tiny white house represents a call back to a much simpler way of life. I think we can all learn so much from that. A simpler way is something I aspire towards!

As I made my way past the little house, up the crags and through the boulder fields, the weather became progressively worse. I was in a constant mist of soft rain which seems to come from every direction. Soaked is not even the word that would fully represent how I ended up. Drenched would be better. Saturated would be best. Pretty soon my dream of reaching the summit was dashed as a black cloud descended over the peak. The sound of a helicopter flying around didn’t do much for my confidence either! The first Munro was then lost completely to a blanket of darkness. There was only one thing to do - turn back.

“...It was just me and this little creature on what felt like the whole mountain...”

But before I headed back down, I sat on the rock to assess the route and to pause for a second to fully mourn the loss of not being able to achieve my goal. Which was just enough time for a mountain mouse to appear from under a rock, look at me, and then scuttle back into the earth. It was just me and this little creature on what felt like the whole mountain. I was alone. Completely. 

No WIFI, no 3G, not a soul around …it was just me (the mouse) and my own thoughts. A place I didn’t think would be so powerful. Being alone really makes you realise a lot of things. It allows you reassess yourself. It’s like standing in front of a mirror that reveals every dark corner of your being. Every fear you have ever had or anxiety that you have tried to bury, all begin to bubble back up to the surface to face you straight on. Something that is not for the faint hearted but facing them is the only way they can be resolved, however terrifying. So, there I was, with my mountain mouse, in a period of gentle calm on the mountain, facing my demons head on.  

One of my demons may surprise you - I am a hopeless romantic. Which is not something that is often considered a demon. I am literally in love with being in love. And I often take this into my everyday life. Although I am a deep thinker and I’m great at reflecting, I fail to see when something isn’t quite right, or indeed when things are incredibly wrong. I like to romanticise life on all levels and think the best of every situation and every thing. If someone tells me something sincerely, I believe it. Which is wonderful, but very much to my own determent. I leave myself open to manipulation, to being used and to ultimately being hurt. 

“...I was taken with it, swept from my feet and carried along the river of desire and red flags.” 

I recently found myself in a situation with a whirlwind person, they came on strong then left without a word only to returned with the same intense feelings they had shown me before. I was taken with it, swept from my feet and carried along the river of desire and red flags. I let myself be carried off into a situation that I knew would cause me pain in the end, when they would inevitably leave again. Which they did. The worst part - I did this to myself, I had allowed this to happen by not listening to my own intuition. Deep down I knew full well it would end this way but I ignored it.

The distance (physical and mental), stillness, time and the lack of distraction from external sources, allowed me to see things with more clarity. The whirlwind was not real. A hard truth. It was a fabricated illusion that I hooked onto. Sat on the mountain, with the mist of the harsh Scottish Highland weather coming at me, I could for once see the exact realities that were there all along. Realities that I had chosen to ignore and break my own standards and boundaries for. Making decisions and taking actions that are not part of who I am or who I want to be. 

From there I made the conscious choice to place myself on a different path with the hope it will root me back into reality and lift the veil that has been clouding my view. 

With my sopping wet boots back on the ground, I felt the connection of the scree beneath my feet, crunching as I stood up. I began my decent down the mountain. Back down to face my reality with truth in my heart and with the realisation that whirlwinds will only ever create destruction in their wake.

Forever rising inward, Chelsea x

Double Century

Route: SMC route

Height: 933m

Date: 21 June 2017

Time to summit: 3h 26mins

Total time: 7h 43mins

With: Philip 

Weather: Mixed, mainly cloudy but in the morning some bright sunshine, humid and fairly warm, view from summit but cloud came down and showers on descent. Windy in places with very strong gusts on ridge.  

Notes: The forcast wasn’t that great so we made a fairly early start driving round to Coulags via the facilities at Achnasheen. After parking just to the west of the bridge we began making our way along the track to Torridon. Soon there was a footpath sign, curiously from Gloucester County Council, diverting the route on foot a short way around the track, but this soon made its way back onto the track going to the hydro works for a short while. A short way we diverted off the track to follow a slightly rougher, presumably original, route that vaguely paralleled the hydro track. This wound its way gently uphill and was very good going. Just to our side, very close at times were various diggers and machines doing things to make the run-of-the-river hydro scheme, including a rock crushing one.

Eventually we crossed the Fionn-abhainn on a bridge and left the hydro works behind. The very good path continued along the valley with quite good views of Meall nan Ceapairean to the west and Maol Chean-dearg coming into view. The weather was vastly better than anticipated - I was even regretting not wearing shorts! After a while we came to a very nice and well maintained bothy that we had a quick look around. Continuing along the valley we passed a couple of tents. The good path continued, although there was one vaguely boggy patch before we took the fork off to the left to continue our ascent up.

This was a little bit rougher but very very well graded with zigzags as we made our way up to the bealach between Maol Chean-dearg and Meall nan Ceapairean. The sandstone cliffs of Meall nan Ceapairean towered above us quite impressively. Just before getting into Coire Garbh we stopped to refill our bottles, although this seemed to make it cloud over a bit more. We continued on the excellent path which made its way up to Bealach a’ Choire Ghairbh in a series of very wide curves making it very easy going. We were now into the quartzite and the path was very white. As we approached the belach the views over to An Ruadh-Stac were very impressive - it looked like it would be a good hill to climb another day.

We turned onto the ridge, continuing on path that was a little loose and sandy but still quite good and zigzagged. The wind got up as we gained the ridge. We made our way fairly steeply up for a while through jagged outcrops of quartzite and then continued along a flatter area on the broad ridge. The gradient steeped once again when we hit the sandstone, although it did get a bit grassier. This went up in two steep sections, the second being mainly boulders with an indistinct route to follow. We met two men coming down - the campists - who had 3 black labradors with them. The wind got even stronger as we approached the summit, although when we got to the wide flat area of the top it did seem a bit less intense.

At the summit my dad went to find a geocache and I tried, with quite poor phone signal, and ultimately unsuccessfully, to deal with a text from my bank saying they had a security concern about my credit card. It was very hazy but we could see over to Beinn Alligin and Liathach and Beinn Eighe. While we ate our lunch the weather seemed to get a bit worse and by the time we were ready to leave the summit the cloud had come down and it had started to rain.

Descending we retraced our ascent, first making our way down the sandstone boulders. At the bottom of this first steep section I decided I was too hot in my overtrousers and that it had stopped raining so I could take them off. A few minutes later I was quickly trying to get them back on! The short, sharp, rain showers continued all the way down to the belach, although we didn’t get particularly wet. By the time we got down into the corie the weather seemed to have improved so we were able to take our waterproofs off again.

The very good path made for an easy descent. We stopped for a while in the bothy to have a snack - looking at the log book it seemed to be a  popular spot. After setting out we ran back in to shelter from another shower for a short while. Eventually continuing we carried on along past the hydro scheme where they were still hard at work and made our way back to the car just before another shower started.