yup - can well remember those external frames rucksacks with bits that dug into your back.....as well as gaiters with tie up laces (no velcro then), waterproofs that weighed a ton and didn't breathe at all....etc etc....and 35mm film
- but still enjoyable nonetheless - great to have the memories - cheers
I was 16 and that July a group of us were on a post O level school trip staying in the old schoolhouse in Elphin which had been turned into a hostel. I remember being in awe of the mountains up there. The photo of the Bothy,the gear outside it and your description of it brought back many memories of that time and the sence of adventure, that's when the mountaineering bug took hold. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for commenting Rockhopper and Martin.h and sorry for not responding at the time; I have treated these posts as a diary as much as anything else and there always seemed something more important with which to be getting on... Poor of me.
It was all a long time ago now but, as you both suggest, the memories of those early trips stay with you and, while the gear might have changed, the camaraderie and the sense of adventure haven't. These were, as the title of the post suggests, my first Munros and I reckon that, unless catastrophe intervenes, I'm on track to finish them all before the next decade is out; that'll be well over 50 years of wandering around Scotland at too infrequent and rather irregular intervals!
May see you out on the hills at some point but, as I prefer to pick unfrequented routes off a map, maybe not...!