by Lightfoot2017 » Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:03 pm
I was just wondering if folk on WH might like to share their close-calls on the hills…occasions, incidents, when they came a cropper and were ‘this close’ to buying the farm. I’m sure many such incidents will be winter, snow and ice-related – particularly for WH members who have bagged well into triple-figures.
I don’t suggest this thread in a light-hearted or humorous tone. Quite the opposite. I know, for example, that some of us will have friends and acquaintances who, tragically, have lost their lives on the hills, and that is a lesson in itself: that we take hill-walking and the vagaries of the Scottish weather lightly at our peril. I think it would be useful to add the learning point of what you did wrong – so that others could learn from that and (hopefully!) not repeat the experience.
I've not bagged that many hills, but one relatively recent (May 2013) incident comes to mind.
I was walking the Invervar / Glen Lyon circuit of four Munros: Carn Gorm, Meal Garbh, Cairn Mairg and Creag Mhor. It was a fine day, with a relatively easy ascent of the first peak. I managed the second peak pretty much without too much difficulty. However, after that, patchy cloud started to descend, and got worse; the cloud persisted as I made my way (or so I thought) to the third summit,
I walked for maybe 20-25 mins. By this time visibility was maybe 20-30M or so. To make things worse, after a bright sunny start, it started to hail. A strong wind was blowing too - to the point where it was horizontal hail, not quite a white-out, but certainly very disorientating. I had to pull-up my balaclava and the drawstring on my jacket hood so that I could ‘see’ out of a tiny viewing slot as it were…. I must have been fumbling about for a good 30 mins by this time, convinced I was en route to summit 3. After checking my map (difficult in these conditions!) and trying to take a bearing, I realised that the part of the hill I was now on didn’t reflect what my map said it should. Slightly worrying realisation: I was lost.
My location was very exposed, and the weather was getting worse. After a few more mins, I saw a cairn and took shelter behind it. Interestingly, the cairn was very precisely built – shaped exactly like a trig point, and about 6ft high. (Btw, if anyone knows where I was, based on this description, please let me know!). I sought shelter and sat down on the lee side of the cairn, waiting for the hail storm to pass. Watching the horizontal hail was mesmeric. After about 20 mins, though, I found myself nodding off. You know that way, when you wake up with a start, like you’re falling? Well, after doing this twice, I made a conscious point of slapping myself in the face to wake myself up, and forced myself in the general direction of ‘downhill’. By this time, I didn’t give a monkeys about bagging the other two Munros. What was important was getting off the hill safe and in one piece.
I eventually managed it and came off the hill, somewhat with my tail behind my legs.
The learning point? Quite simply the most basic of all: learn to read a map properly. Go over your route several times before you head off. Use every information source you can (map, online, GPS) to plot your route and become familiar with it. But of course, you all know that. I didn’t then. But I do now.
