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Waking up after 6h sleep isn’t nice, but the realization that I was camping in Glen Etive at the foot of my favourite mountains always puts a smile on my face. Being nice and warm also helped, but convincing myself to get up after having spend the previous night at the ceilidh with the Lomond Mountaineering club and not getting to my bed until well past 1 am was another topic
Opening my tent and being greeted by a bunch of clouds around Creise, I crawled outside to check Buachaille towards the back of my tent and saw even more clouds….ah time for another wee snooze. Half an hour later I managed to drag myself outside my toasty warm sleeping bag. I walked down the burn for a wash (a sure way to wake up as I haven’t found the hot water switch so far) and when I got back and looked in my wee mirror, I was greeting with wild hair and was glad I was alone with no other campers to scare away hehe
Getting ready I put my tent away, had a bowl of cold porridge in the car (far too lazy to cook) and drove towards Glencoe to walk up Sgor na h-Ulaidh.
I had spend the previous Friday studying the map and I had marked out the path I wanted to take (easy task from a compfy sofa) In my defence I never learned to read a map properly and until Sunday, I didn’t do that bad.
I parked my car and walked across the road, climbed over the fence and walked a faint path towards Aonach Dubh a Ghlinne. The path wasn’t in the book, but I guessed that it was a recently added one, as it made sense and skipped the walk along the road to the landrover path.
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- The path and the wee hill to climb up
My plan had been to ignore all paths and walk up the mountain - face on. When I checked the map and saw the mountain in front of me a few f… words
where in my vocabulary…it was sooo steep !!! I had 2 choices…either ignore my plan and do the ‘normal’ route or drag my complaining brain up the path I decided on.
Willpower and stubbornness made me stick to the plan. It didn’t make any sense as the non existing path looked anything but inviting and being tired and a wee bit grumpy I did the only thing left to do…put my ipod on and cranked up the music. Battering my path through heather I walked on, huffing and puffing and cursing myself. In between all of this I managed to sing along- loudly and probably scaring the living daylight out of the sheep on the way, as my singing can only be compared of that to a goose farting in the fog
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- Half way up
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- Looking down the gully I came up
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- I want that rock in my garden -can anyone fetch that for me please?
When an old Devinals song came on and the lyrics were ‘there is a fine line between pleasure and pain’ I decided that I was definitely in far more pain than pleasure at the moment! Neverless I continued to sing along and when I reached the cliff face, half way up, my mood was indeed getting better and the next dance song had me throwing my arms up in the air and dancing along on a wee ledge…I was hoping no one was watching me from the bottom- there is definitely an advantage of walking alone!
But anything helps and I managed to reach the top of Aonach Dubh a Ghlinne after 2h.
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- The wee loch on top of Aonach Dubh a Ghlinne
I collapsed on the ground and had some juice and a bite to eat before I continued. When I finally got to see Sgor na h-Ulaidh I could not have been more de-motivated as it looked miles away. I guess tiredness from not enough sleep and the previous 2h uphill also played a part.
I pushed myself to carry on and decided that after all I rather liked the hill I just climbed…the views around were stunning and making up your own path does always feels special.
The walk to Sgor na h-Ulaidh was a constant up and down and when I finally reached the cairn I had to admit that Sgor na h-Ulaidh is definitely one of my least favourite mountains…I simply didn’t like it.
Deciding to get back down as soon as possible I managed to miss the path I walked up and had to climb down a rather steep bit which was horrible.
Horrible was also the walk down the grassy slope. I did walk along the whole side of Aonach Dubh a Ghlinne. The mountain just didn’t seem to end and by that I was utterly fed up and tired.
I passed a couple (at least I wasn’t as slow as I thought) and finally manage to reach the landrover path after 6 long hours.
By the time I was back at my car, I was ready to kiss it and decided that 2 weekends walking both days was enough and that I would swap next weekend paths to pavements preferably with shops on either side
