Wind, Rain and Midges
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:03 pmDaft or keen or maybe both. We headed North despite the forecast warning against rain and wind. Well you never know sometimes the weather forecasters get it wrong......Actually they did.... they forgot the midges!
Plan A on Saturday was to try and get this minor Munro bagged if cloud cover was high enough and if not to do a Corbett.
When we arrived at the car park things looked as though they may get damp but the cloud was above 950m which was enough for us to give this the thumbs up.
We walked against fairly strong (possibly 50 mph) winds on the way in and the rain got slowly heavier.
Just as we reached Bealach Leamhain to turn toward the summit the cloud dropped and covered it over.
The only consolation was that we did a complete U turn to approach the summit with the wind behind us - by now Luigi estimated it at 70mph - enough to make standing difficult and for us to be blown up onto the summit. Biggest difficulty at this point was stopping long enough to grab a photo.
The walk down was in the shelter of the hill and the only real event was when we turned back at one point to see John standing in a hole that came up to his waist. He promptly climbed out of it and straight into another. He wasn't able to give a good reason for this unusual behavior!
About 10 minutes from the car and all the way to and into the car the midges ambushed us. I have never seen them so thick nor so fierce. We drove off without changing -despite being soaked - and for about 10 minutes played a game of rolling the windows up and down to try and dislodge and evacuate those who had hitched a lift. I'm scratching just thinking about it..
Plan A on Saturday was to try and get this minor Munro bagged if cloud cover was high enough and if not to do a Corbett.
When we arrived at the car park things looked as though they may get damp but the cloud was above 950m which was enough for us to give this the thumbs up.
We walked against fairly strong (possibly 50 mph) winds on the way in and the rain got slowly heavier.
Just as we reached Bealach Leamhain to turn toward the summit the cloud dropped and covered it over.
The only consolation was that we did a complete U turn to approach the summit with the wind behind us - by now Luigi estimated it at 70mph - enough to make standing difficult and for us to be blown up onto the summit. Biggest difficulty at this point was stopping long enough to grab a photo.
The walk down was in the shelter of the hill and the only real event was when we turned back at one point to see John standing in a hole that came up to his waist. He promptly climbed out of it and straight into another. He wasn't able to give a good reason for this unusual behavior!
About 10 minutes from the car and all the way to and into the car the midges ambushed us. I have never seen them so thick nor so fierce. We drove off without changing -despite being soaked - and for about 10 minutes played a game of rolling the windows up and down to try and dislodge and evacuate those who had hitched a lift. I'm scratching just thinking about it..