The Little Things

[dav2930]

A Brocken Spectre waving back at me

[jupe1407]

1. The drive. Passing the Glen Garry viewpoint on a clear and sunny morning en-route to Kintail and/or Skye is nothing short of magnificent.
2. Clearing boggy lower slopes to reach solid, bouldery ground.
3. Driving through Glen Shiel to the sound of The Stone Roses "She Bangs the Drums".
4. Reaching a landrover track after a steep grassy/boggy descent
5. The moment your @rse hits the car seat after a long day.

[Scott69]

When you take your boot off after a long one and kind off peel your socks from the balls of your feet....such a ahhhhh moment ...or maybe that's just me

[dav2930]

Plodding up a featureless slope, the clag's down, the path disappears. Just as you resign yourself to stopping to take a compass bearing, the path suddenly reappears and saves you the bother.

[katyhills]

Definitely taking off your socks and boots at the end of a long day, but, for me, getting back to the car after a long, hot day and remembering you have a little emergency bottle of juice stowed in the boot is a godsend!

[WalkingDutchman]

Life becoming really simple: walk all day, just putting one foot in front of the other, then eat, then sleep. Repeat the next day.

That.

Meeting random people on the way or after the walk and invariably having a good chat with them.

This. Also:

Walking on Skye, the alternating smells of heather and ocean.

After a long day on your feet, sitting in front of your tent, watching the stars come out, taking that first sip of the wee dram of single malt, simply enjoying being out there.

Getting out into the hills on that first day, after looooong hours of travel, crowds, waiting, feeling every work-, house-, mortgage-, <fill in yours>-worry slip away and feeling properly alive, knowing there's a whole week of this ahead of you.

(sigh. writing this makes me want to be out there.....)

[Sandy Banks]

For me out on a walk in October is sitting in the lea of a boulder having a cup of tea listening to the stags roar and feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Sandy

[Guinessman]

Hearing the wind blow through some Scots pines,there's a particular sound to it.

[Jaxter]

When you take your boot off after a long one and kind off peel your socks from the balls of your feet....such a ahhhhh moment ...or maybe that's just me

Oooooh yes, there's nothing better

[Jaxter]

When you take your boot off after a long one and kind off peel your socks from the balls of your feet....such a ahhhhh moment ...or maybe that's just me

Oooooh yes, there's nothing better

[Michael Thomson]

The hiss of the stove boiling the first cuppa after you've pitched your tent

The 'thonk' noise an ice axe makes when you get a good placement in ice

[matt_outandabout]

Drinking really cold water from a stream.

That feeling of sun on your face when you emerge from the clag at the end of a day - and your whole body overheats in the too many layers you are wearing.

The few days a year when the Scottish wind is *warm* on you...

Satisfaction of popping out mist or rain and finding your navigation was absolutely spot on.

Hearing youngsters (and older!) happy at the end of a days hillwalk and speaking about doing it again.

Then meeting one or your group members up a hill a decade later, as he was ticking off Munro's, who introduced himself and thanked me.

The sound of someone else's tent door opening first while you are still in a warm, cosy bag.

The first lungful of clean air after leaving a city behind.

Scott69 wrote:
When you take your boot off after a long one and kind off peel your socks from the balls of your feet....such a ahhhhh moment ...or maybe that's just me

Oooooh yes, there's nothing better

I, I don't know, I could think of a few things...

[litljortindan]

That folk invariably at least say hello beyond a certain altitude or distance from the road.
Comments in bothy books.
How we almost have two different countries according to the season.
How immense a smallish hill can look from the roadside when adorned with snow.
The last midge bite of the year.

[OpenC]

The supernatural colour of the world below after spending an hour or two among rocks in the clouds. When you drop back below the cloud level and see the green, it's almost unnaturally vibrant.

I'm really badly colourblind but it feels like i have normal colour vision when this happens

[johnkaysleftleg]

When bright sunlight hits a wet hillside and it glistens and glows.