rohan wrote:Well done all round. Hopefully these guys will get some proper experience and knowledge under their belts and go on to enjoy the hills. Did you recommend this site to them?! However even experienced people make mistakes and without the full facts in any report I would be slow to judge what other people do. For me I feel it better to concentrate on getting it right for myself when I am out there and then, like yourselves, be in a position to assist if I come across someone in trouble. Fortunately I have never had to as yet and I am only too aware that I can make fundamental mistakes like forgetting my lunch, spare gloves , hat etc.
You may have read my account of Ben Macdui incorporating my mother's 70 yr old diary report. In that she and her sister (both could navigate proficiently but being in their 20s probably did not have that much hill experience) accept another walker's invitation to follow him off Ben Macdui in poor visibility. They had no knowledge of his skills but were happy to follow him as he led them off ,as it turned out, wrongly. Fortunately he was able to rectify his mistake and they all got down safely but they had no idea where they were by this point but as my mother says "His first effort was to bring us to the head of a very steep corrie, the mist rolling away & a little beyond our footing revealed almost perpendicular sides – as he silently surveyed it I wished we had stuck to the cairns for I had lost all sense of direction & had not the remotest idea of where we were ….” Conditions apart from the mist were relatively benign but for this reason I am never content to just follow on without having an idea myself where I am.
All very good points and a great story! and I have to add now that its a couple of weeks ago that my initial disbelief/amazement/incredulity and ridicule of the people involved has abated and I'm now just glad it all worked out, that people want to be on hills and hope now that the experience will teach them something valuable for the future.
I am still in the belief that had I met the two of them - in those conditions with no kit (crampons/ice axes - non-cotton clothes! , gear or real experience I would have turned them back and would never have suggested they follow .. but if I did its probably realistic to assume they would have followed as these two did..
I know at times I like everyone make some blunt statements but I'm aware we all run the risk of disaster on the hills not just those "inexperienced" of which, I would add I still see myself as - certainly compared to others. We didn't get a chance tom recommend any site I don't think over the howling wind and hail
Anyhoo - made for a great story!