In the last month I've encountered, or carried out myself, hill behaviour with ill consequences.
The latest one, which made three and triggered the urge to write, was not checking navigation equipment. Good weather forecasting has made navigation easier, we can mostly see where we're going. Twenty years ago, it was anyone's guess what you went out in. I remember one year that started and I'd visibility on just one of my first fifteen summits. Now we can identify weather opportunities and navigational equipment goes unused. So when I pulled out my compass last week, I'd not used it in a while and I was disturbed to find it had been leaking and the bubble was now huge.
It still pointed north, if I held it very carefully, but at a critical point I didn't and I headed off at 90 degrees to my route. There was decent visibility and I saw a trig point which let me correct but it was not a good moment. When you're using your equipment infrequently you should still check it works.
Then there was that spectacular lightning storm and rain last month. I was caught out in it in Clais Fhearnaig above Glen Lui and riding my bike as if pursued by orcs. No ill resulted but the next morning, cycling to Braemar I encountered this scene.
The lad with the tent had skipped across the Dee the previous day to camp on the island. At 4 a.m. his tent was practically the only bit of the island above water level and he called the emergency services. Fortunately that was high water. I chatted to the Fire Brigade, who were cheerfully awaiting equipment to retrieve him.
Thirdly, I was walking in the Borders above Lauder. I met a lad pushing an electric bike and when I asked what was wrong, he told me he’d broken his chain. Well I let him know that when the Lord arrives on his fiery chariot, there ain’t gonna be no place among the e-lect for sinners on e-bikes. This didn’t make much sense to him. I established he’d no useful repair tools and while he appeared to have been following a route on his phone, he couldn’t navigate his way out of this problem. I pointed him to a green track where he could freewheel to a tarred road that would let him freewheel into Lauder. The thing is that sometime in the next year, this is going to happen deep in the Cairngorms, maybe for something trivial as a puncture. Then it’ll be a call to MR. They ought to refer it to the AA for roadside assistance but instead they’ll have to mount a rescue.
All odd errors, all avoidable by carrying the right equipment (or listening to a forecast).
