Daftest thing you've done whilst on a hill..

[jupe1407]

Nothing major from me apart from:

- A hilariously **** bearing from the top of Ben Macdui in mist which sent me down an obscenely steep boulderfield and emerging pretty much in front of Carn a'Mhaim instead of Sron Riach, resulting in an extra hill I hadn't intended, several more miles and general seethe at my own stupidity.
- Literally **** in the wind on Beinn Alligin. A challenging task in 60mph gusts.

My pal (who shall remain nameless) beats me though. Walking to the summit cairn on Carn nan Gobhar (Strathfarrar) on a boiling hot, windless day, he released the longest, loudest hangover fart I've ever heard in all my life. Unfortunately he didn't realise there were a couple of ladies on the other side of the cairn enjoying their lunch. We literally spent about 5 seconds at the top before moving swiftly on.

Hi Jupe I thought you were about say something even more unfortunate happened!

I'm stunned it didn't tbh. That incident set off a comical chain reaction of "trouser coughs" that didn't stop until the after the 3rd munro. He blamed a "bad pint" iirc

[Arthurs Eat]

Nothing major from me apart from:

- A hilariously **** bearing from the top of Ben Macdui in mist which sent me down an obscenely steep boulderfield and emerging pretty much in front of Carn a'Mhaim instead of Sron Riach, resulting in an extra hill I hadn't intended, several more miles and general seethe at my own stupidity.
- Literally **** in the wind on Beinn Alligin. A challenging task in 60mph gusts.

My pal (who shall remain nameless) beats me though. Walking to the summit cairn on Carn nan Gobhar (Strathfarrar) on a boiling hot, windless day, he released the longest, loudest hangover fart I've ever heard in all my life. Unfortunately he didn't realise there were a couple of ladies on the other side of the cairn enjoying their lunch. We literally spent about 5 seconds at the top before moving swiftly on.

Hi Jupe I thought you were about say something even more unfortunate happened!

I'm stunned it didn't tbh. That incident set off a comical chain reaction of "trouser coughs" that didn't stop until the after the 3rd munro. He blamed a "bad pint" iirc

Really want to laugh but I think many of us have been there (and beyond)

[teaandpies]

I thought I'd do a 'controlled bum slide' on the north side of the first summit on Being Sgulaird...as soon as shifted my weight to sit down I slipped and went down uncontrolled...I tried to arrest but the act wasn't doing anything to slow me down, it was like a hot knife through butter. I was on my belly and my Gore-Tex jacket just madthe fall frictionless. I hit a rock with my right foot, I jarred my ankle and knee pretty badly. It's still giving me bother now as I write this now. It's been 2 years and 4 weeks since that incident. I've not walked a Munro since

[Caberfeidh]

That reminds me of an uncontrolled slide I performed on the Ben early i my mountaineering career. So early I lacked crampons and ice axes, and was using binbags taped to my knees and boots as gaiters. I was traversing a steep snow slope, crusted with ice on top but my boots crunched through the crust to the soft snow underneath. This type of torment was described by some more famous mountaineer as being "like stepping in and out of chimney pots all day", which is a very accurate description. The slope also had pointy rocks sticking out of the ice crust. I leaned too far and fell forward, my leg stuck down a chimney pot and my knee trying to bend the wrong way, like an ostrich. I was spawled forward on the surface, so I turned over on my back to pull my leg out of the hole. Now there was nothing holding me in place so I obeyed the laws of gravity and hurtled downwards, speeding head-first towards the jaggy rocks. Using my face as a friction brake was interesting, causing some blackening of the eyes due to the icy crust. I am blessed with a large nose which acted much like the pick of an ice axe, and arrested my slide admirably. We resumed our downward procession at a more sedate pace and soon afterwards I purchased my first ice axe and helmet. A marvellously long Stubai GPI, and an old U.S. steel helmet from the Vietnam war, a mere seventeen quid from a militaria junk shop which used to be in a building in West Regent Street in Glasgow....

Me old helm from far off days

[Caberfeidh]

Then there was the time at Luskentyre on Harris, when Mad Trow-Boy Orkney Graham stripped off and ran naked into the sea (this was October). He didn't realise that the sea was very shallow for a long way, and so had to run naked for hundreds of yards splashing through ankle-deep chilly water before he could get to water deep enough to dive in. My how we laughed. Then ran away with his clothes. I often wonder what became of him...

[Pastychomper]

Then there was the time at Luskentyre on Harris, when Mad Trow-Boy Orkney Graham stripped off and ran naked into the sea (this was October). He didn't realise that the sea was very shallow for a long way, and so had to run naked for hundreds of yards splashing through ankle-deep chilly water before he could get to water deep enough to dive in. My how we laughed. Then ran away with his clothes. I often wonder what became of him...

Probably avoided embarrassment by swimming home. Those Orcadians are made of stern stuff.

[madprof]

In clag on the Creag Meagaidh plateau I decided to "walk in a straight line" and not take a bearing.

And what did this straight line look like?

[Lightfoot2017]

Some utterly brilliant, mad, scary and hilarious posts here.

Really reassuring to know I'm not the only Numpty out there...

[MusicalHiker]

Hmmmm after a long think I came up with this... I'm always very well organised and usually alone so this is as daft as it gets - I was with Mum and we were walking to the Bone Caves over by Inchnadamph. Except, I parked at the wrong place as I hadn't been for a couple of years and got a bit confused about why it was wrong.... then I realised we were walking towards the bottom of Conival, so as it was perfect weather and we had all the stuff we needed, we went for it. After all, I had my BMC Munros book in my backpack.... except I'd also accidentally picked up the Corbetts one instead! We did it anyway, it was summer, crystal clear conditions and I did have a map. Had a brilliant, unexpected 9.5 hour day, and it was her first and only Munro!

[litljortindan]

Single daftest thing is possibly bivvying near Lawers visitor centre with, aside from clothing, only a roll of bin bags for protection against the cold and a rucksack for comfort against the bumpy ground.

[Mal Grey]

Single daftest thing is possibly bivvying near Lawers visitor centre with, aside from clothing, only a roll of bin bags for protection against the cold and a rucksack for comfort against the bumpy ground.

Ha. We did similar on the Cuillin Ridge to travel light in 1995. Not a good night, drizzle arrived almost immediately we stopped, almost hypothermic by sunrise (in June, thankfully this was VERY early) and we had to retreat.

[Mal Grey]

Single daftest thing is possibly bivvying near Lawers visitor centre with, aside from clothing, only a roll of bin bags for protection against the cold and a rucksack for comfort against the bumpy ground.

Ha. We did similar on the Cuillin Ridge to travel light in 1995. Not a good night, drizzle arrived almost immediately we stopped, almost hypothermic by sunrise (in June, thankfully this was VERY early) and we had to retreat.

Otherwise, this probably counts as pretty daft, well the carrying canoes bit; https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=96334

[litljortindan]

Single daftest thing is possibly bivvying near Lawers visitor centre with, aside from clothing, only a roll of bin bags for protection against the cold and a rucksack for comfort against the bumpy ground.

Ha. We did similar on the Cuillin Ridge to travel light in 1995. Not a good night, drizzle arrived almost immediately we stopped, almost hypothermic by sunrise (in June, thankfully this was VERY early) and we had to retreat.

I had a better night than you then but still cold on a May 2000 bivvy on Gars-bheinn with just an orange plastic survival bag. Quite uncomfortable and cold and sleepless but a memorable sky and walk. The survival bag was better than those bin bags though.

[zatapathique]

Fantastic topic, so many good laughs. The penguin is just hilarious, or the story with the friend's car

I've experienced similar things, for example

Talking loudly to my self (in German, luckily) on Sgurr Choinnich Mòr (Grey Corries) about how bad that ridge down Stob Coire Easain was and that "No thanks, this time I will not try to bypass anything but walk stright up the ridge, do you understand, mountain?!", only to turn around and see a guy approaching with a big question mark in his face...

On my way to Mont Buet, forgetting my SLR on top of "Le Cheval Blanc" - French Alps, sitting right on the border to Switzerland, 2831 m (yes, not feet), many kilometres from civilization. Luckily the only guy I met all day long was on the summit at the same time and came running after me with my SLR when he spotted it...

French Alps again, drove one and a half hour from where I lived at the time to Chamonix to go up Le Brévent (2525 m). Arriving at the parking, opening the trunk, and not seeing my walking boots... In retrospect, I'd have loved to see my face... I did the circuit with the trainers I wore to drive. At the end of the day, after walking over all the Karst, they were ready to be thrown away...

Finally, the memorable day out in the Lake District with Mrs. Zatapathique. We walked from Borrowdale via Glaramara to Allen Crags, then back through the Grains valley. After some lunch in the shelter on Glaramara, the clouds moved in and we couldn't see far. Off we went, always straight south south west - or so we thought. After an hour, we finally spotted what we thought to be the summit of Allen Crags. I said "Hey, look - there's a shelter, too." - Mrs. Z.: "Yeah, looks exactly like the shelter on Glaramara" - Z.: "Wait a minute, it IS the shelter on Glaramara..." We had a good laugh before doing what we should have done in the first place - get the compass out of the backpack and navigate properly... Since then, we refer to this incident as the "Glaramara Roundabout".

The_Glaramara_Roundabout.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

Our path is wonderfully confusing, isn't it? Something went wrong half-way, but more seems to have gone wrong already in the beginning. We never had the impression of going round in circles, certainly not several times...
(You can see more details when you open my file in OpenTopoMap. I'm quite sure I'm not allowed to upload a screenshot of it here, otherwise I'd have done it.)

[dav2930]

Finally, the memorable day out in the Lake District with Mrs. Zatapathique. We walked from Borrowdale via Glaramara to Allen Crags, then back through the Grains valley. After some lunch in the shelter on Glaramara, the clouds moved in and we couldn't see far. Off we went, always straight south south west - or so we thought. After an hour, we finally spotted what we thought to be the summit of Allen Crags. I said "Hey, look - there's a shelter, too." - Mrs. Z.: "Yeah, looks exactly like the shelter on Glaramara" - Z.: "Wait a minute, it IS the shelter on Glaramara..." We had a good laugh before doing what we should have done in the first place - get the compass out of the backpack and navigate properly... Since then, we refer to this incident as the "Glaramara Roundabout".
Our path is wonderfully confusing, isn't it? Something went wrong half-way, but more seems to have gone wrong already in the beginning. We never had the impression of going round in circles, certainly not several times...
(You can see more details when you open my file in OpenTopoMap. I'm quite sure I'm not allowed to upload a screenshot of it here, otherwise I'd have done it.)

I know exactly what you mean about the "Glaramara Roundabout", that's a great name for it! It's such a confusing place when the clag's down, and navigating your way to Allen Crags is pretty challenging, even with a compass. The path is clear in some parts but then just disappears in others and is tricky to re-locate. But yes, the key is always to trust the compass and ignore your "intuitions".