“Life is a fatal adventure. It can only have one end. So why not make it as far-ranging and free as possible”

Thornton Wilder

I’m on a pretty huge trip this week, and I’ve just driven here from the Lake District seeing my mate Aurora and her friend Gareth. Being the lovely person I am I agreed to drop him in Carlisle on my way through with his dog Nami there. His dog is awesome but as he’s sat in the passenger footwell and he likes sniffing me, there has been a few times I’ve almost changed gear with his snout and put him into fifth gear instead of the car. Doggo is also shedding so, when I finally drop Gaz and the doggo off I’ve gained enough dog hair to build a second dog with.I continue the drive to Glen Coe and the journey in itself is proper brutal as I’m tired and I’ve had to stop for a few snoozes already. It’s meant to take about three and a half hours but it takes more like five, and that’s a lot of driving but eventually I’m over the border into Scotland. Soon the city slowly gives way to mountains and the sky becomes the usual steely Scottish grey.

Carrying a Heavy Griefcase

Unfortunately I hadn’t realised I was passing through near Loch Lomond and this puts a real damper on my mood, a I have to stop the car as memories of this place are making it hard to concentrate on driving so I park up, get out and walk down to the Loch to clear my head, I walk down to the shore, nearby where two old men are fishing the Loch on this beautiful summers day in a scene that starkly contrasts with the dark storm that swirls inside my head. It’s difficult driving past this place for a very specific reason, the last time I was here it was because the other half had recently passed away. I knew she would have loved it here so this is where we were going to come for a holiday once lockdown had lifted, we couldn’t see each other as she was ill already and covid would have finished her. In a horrible twist of fate after keeping apart, just as lockdown was lifted she caught covid anyway an passed on. We never had the chance to do the things we talked about, so in my grief I came here and She would have loved it here so I came anyway and hiked the mountain known as ‘The Cobbler’ to light a candle for her. I was a mess and I remember standing by this Loch feeling empty and lost like I’d never find my way again. Despite the peace here the sadness sits in my stomach like I’ve swallowed a cannonball. I’m not just carrying grief for Vix though it’s for my mate Baz and my father who passed on recently too. As you can imagine this means I’ve already begun to have a very bad mental health day. Maybe you you’d say I’ve got a lot of emotional baggage at the moment, but I’d like to think of it as carrying three heavy grief-cases.

Grief is tidal. In time, it can recede and leave us with feelings of peace and advancement, only for it to wash back in with all its crushing hopelessness and sorrow. Back and forth it goes, but with each retreating drift of despair, we are left a little stronger, more resilient, more essential and better at our new life.

Nick Cave

I finally pull myself together enough to stop being full of tears and go get back in the car and continue to drive past Loch Lomond which takes a while because it’s huge, then eventually into Glen Coe. This place is absolutely huge and it always makes me feel tiny even more so now I’m in a car feeling like I’m driving a hot wheels model. Elsewhere in the UK it is summer but not here in the Glen where the clouds hang steely grey in the sky waiting to drop rain or if the forecasts are to be believed even some snow, which I’m hoping doesn’t happen because that’s one thing I haven’t prepared for! From here it’s onto the Glen Etive which according to my looks at the maps will be an excellent place to wild camp. At least I’m hoping I’m right as I am really tired and not happy right now. Before long the road narrows to single track along whic the river sits just below to my left in a mini ravine you wouldn’t want to absent mindedly drive into say because you were really tired like I am. With the evening drawing in I’m also looking for somewhere to park which proves to be difficult as quite a few camper vans have got here before I have. Even as the road widens slightly and more dirt laybys appear nothing much is looking available which doesn’t really help to lighten my mood because at this point I just want to stop and start relaxing.

A Village Somewhere Is Missing An Idiot

Finally I breathe a sigh of relief as a just up ahead a large space next to another car appears next to the river. There’s another guy here, the owner of the car who is giving me a really funny look as I struggle to park my car on this bumpy strip of dirt. I wince as the bottom of my car scrapes what must be a large rock with the and I hope I haven’t damaged the car. I get out and start getting my camping gear together while all the time this guy is staring at me like I just burst out of someone’s chest in front of him, or if he wants to fight me. I say ‘alright?’ as a way of greeting and start walking towards him when he says in rude tainted English ‘my friend he needs to park there’ with not even a passing attempt at being friendly, no hello no hi just flapping his lips like a tosser.

He clearly speaks very good English and must know how to be friendly so I take it that he’s actually just a rude asshole and the look on his face just confirms it. A face like I just decided to slap his mom which maybe somebody should have. Part of me wonders how someone who is this big of a dickhead has friends anyway and I’m tempted to tell him to go and screw himself. For one there’s no parking regulations here and I have no intention of pitching my tent near him as I didn’t come out here to socialise. I just need a parking space so I can relax after eight hours of driving and to clear my head from grief and tiredness. It takes all my energy not to just start an argument with the prospect of having to fight someone actually seeming quite appealing but I decide I’m fully unstable at this moment and it’s best to walk away because I am full of rage. I am one negative event away from having some sort of psychotic break and I know this so, instead of going to get a rock and bashing his head in caveman style like I can see in my minds eye, I just come out with ‘whatever mate, fine’ and head off to the car.

  Driving off angrily I wonder how it is that I’ve driven out for an adventure and to avoid dickheads so why exactly do I instantly find the rudest prick I could possibly encounter within about ten minutes of being here. I drive away in a mood to commit murder but calm down slightly when I find a much better spot with a great view down the vast Glen, I could still slap the guys jaw off with rage all the way through putting my tent up, and I’m putting the tent pegs in like I’m angrily staking a family of vampires I calm down eventually though even though I’m hoping he gets carried off and exsanguinated (that’s being totally drained of blood not a word I get to use often) by a cloud of mutated Scottish midges.

Talking of midges, as if just to stress me out even more they are out in full force this evening and even though I love Scotland the midges are a huge downside. Even after covering yourself head to toe with lovely toxic chemicals like DEET, which I’m now doing now the tent is up, these bastard things still like to take a stroll all over you. DEET works great but it’s not pleasant. This stuff was developed in 1946 by the US Military and was originally for protecting soldiers in areas with large populations of biting insects, jungles for example. It is colourless and though it’s said to have a ‘faint odour’ in reality it does make you smell like you fell in a vat in a chemical factory. Apparently nobody knows how exactly it works but scientists believe it is because it stops the insects from smelling you, which is pretty impressive considering what I smell like after a week of sleeping in the wilderness. All I can smell at the moment is DEET and unfortunately even though it’s working it doesn’t stop them landing on me as I’ve found. and being covered in lots of tiny insects isn’t fun. Another fun fact is that DEET damages some but not all plastics, so I have to remember not to touch about 70 percent of my gear ESPECIALLY the tent . Despite this stuff being proper grim to rub all over yourself it does actually work, that’s of course unless you miss an area of your body and then the Scots Midges are like ‘he missed a wee spot laddies lets get a scran oon!’. I also imagine them wearing microscopic tartan hats because I’m still a child. Oh and they love crawling down my ear holes too just in case I wasn’t feeling uncomfortable enough.

I’m still really not in a good mood having driven past Loch Lomond, and I’m clearly struggling from a lack of rest so for the first time in what must be years I start having a bit of a panic attack. Yes me the guy who does terrifying life threatening things for fun is having a panic attack in the middle of a glen like a small child who’s lost their mum at the supermarket. I do suffer with bad anxiety and if you have only read a few of these blogs you may have missed that but doing scary things really helps with reducing it, and it’s fun. Though giving yourself anxiety to reduce anxiety may sound like trying to put a fire out with a gallon of petrol, it works. The current situation does suck though as I haven’t had a panic attack in years, life at the moment is really screwed up though so it’s kind of understandable. So here I am, wanting to run away as far as possible when essentially I have bar keeping driving until I hit Cape Wrath up the top of Scotland and I’d probably find that funny if I wasn’t sat in the middle of nowhere feeling like someone poured acid into my brain, listening to the rain ping off my tent. I start to wonder wonder to myself why I’m even here. I have to talk myself down and remind myself I’m here to cover a really good QMD for my mountain leader qualification and that this is worth the stress, even if it doesn’t feel like it now. This night of wild camping will go towards my ML Qualification too (even though the car is only a short distance away) as the rain becomes heavier and the sky darkens further, much like my thoughts have I wonder why I didn’t stay in the lake district with my mate Aurora where I know it’s lovely and sunny. Sitting with my feet outside the tent watching the epic scenery with a glass of wine makes me feel no better. Eventually I realise I’m not going to sort myself out without some sleep and a fresh perspective so I do head to bed only to sleep terribly, get covered in midge bites in the areas I apparently missed putting DEET. What’s more even though you’d think the white noise of the river flowing past would help me sleep, it does not and instead I keep on having to get up to pee because I keep dreaming of running water!!

The Next Day

When it got to about 4am this morning I’d had enough so I moved back to the car to be sad, and slightly more comfortable due to this I have actually slept a bit. Admittedly only about four hours but I’ll take that it’s better than none. I try not to be too hard on myself for screwing up the wild camping, because I haven’t done it in years and I’ve never had issues I couldn’t get through before but maybe I’ve got a bit soft. I mean I’ve camped in storms, beaches, up on top of mountains and once when I was younger and for no reason I can remember a bramble bush once. I’m going to have to start to enjoy a bit of discomfort again because there’s way more of these coming up. Looking outside the car window it’s getting a bit sunny and that really raises my spirits, I am a lot more positive today, that that my be because I know I’m going on an adventure. And it’s sunny in Scotland which is a rare occurrence, it must be a sign I need to hike a ton of mountain! To keep this positive feeling going that I now have I decide to get packed up and go and get myself one of my favourite things in Scotland, a lorne sausage and bacon bap and enough tea to drown a person in. After such a crap day yesterday and rough night I really don’t fancy making that instant porridge I have in the back of the car and feeling like a camping version of Oliver Twist.

I pack my wet tent up, which has to be one of the least enjoyable parts about camping, and it gets even sunnier lifting my spirits further. All sorted I go jump in the car and before long I find a nice little cafe called ‘Crafts and Things’ and I’m judging by the looks I’m getting that I look as tired as I feel. Soon I have my Lorne sausage bap in front of me. I bloody love this stuff it’s usually beef or pork minced and turned into squares and fried crispy and though that sounds like a burger it kind of isn’t. Anyway I love them they are well worth trying if you haven’t.

The Great Herdsman Of Etive

After fuelling myself up with as much meat and caffeine as I can handle I’m off towards the mountain in the car and I drive to the car park that sits directly in front of the Buachaille Etive Mòr. As I pull up I get my breath taken away by how epic this mountain looks. It’s name means ‘the great herdsman of Etive’ and it’s often referred to as one of the most striking mountains in Scotland’ and it is easy to see why. With the river that snakes through the vast Glen passing by the foot of the mountain and a singular white cottage sat in front this looks like a postcard setting (and most likely is). This isolated building is Lagangarbh Cottage and it’s a Scottish Mountaineering Club hut located in one of the most epic places possible. As a massive introvert this place has massive appeal for me, and looks even more striking on this rare as unicorn tears sunny summers day in Scotland.

To ascend the mountain I’m heading straight up the Coire na Tulaich which from what I’ve read is quite a challenge, the whole hike in fact is more challenging than most I can find back in North Wales in terms of physical difficulty navigation and skills needed. That’s about to be confirmed by the Coire, that and the route being described as 7-9 hours long. Basically the whole idea here is that I’m pushing myself in terms of skills and physical effort. I quickly find that following the stream up the Coire’s small ravine is a challenge but it’s great practice for moving over awkward ground. There’s lots of large loose boulders here which leaves potential for leg injuries and this gives me a chance to think about how I’d instruct a group to move over this, knowing if I had others with me not staying together would trigger some rock movements. In fact it’s clear that lots of stuff here has moved fairly recently, as I’m heading up this I realise I’ve gone straight into using defensive posture and shortened poles which is the correct action really.

Navigation wise today I’m mainly using the contours and geographical features which shows I’m improving a lot. Using contours for nav does make sense as contours don’t generally change unless there’s been some sort of natural disaster, which makes them reliable than other features. Using these to pinpoint where I’m aiming for exiting this Coire which, is absolutely massive and seems to just keep on going and going. I stop to look back where I’ve parked and all I can see not far from a bunch of trees is a little silver speck in the distance.

The landscape gets much more technical as I head further up, the dip the stream is in becomes a small ravine and there’s clear signs here that heavy rains have washed large boulders down here. All of which I’m careful not to disturb, which the image of that scene in the film 127 hours fresh in my mind. Thankfully I exit this fairly quickly and the proper scree slopes begin (for those not familiar with the term scree is like loose gravelly rocks and debris on a slope in massive abundance) Imagine trying to walk uphill on a mixture of deep shifting boulders and pebbles. As you can imagine this is a proper bitch to ascend walking up it it starts to shift under your feet as you walk up it. I’m doing a bit of a zig zag walk up to make the ascent easier but in the surprisingly hot sun, in this sheltered coire, I’m melting before long. Finally to my relief Eventually the scree gives way to solid rocks and the route turns slowly into an easy scramble, it has taken AGES to get to here and I know I’ll speed up a lot when I hit the summit and ridges

Before long I’m on top but I decide to skip the first summit as the way up has taken lots longer than intended, plus the other summits look way more interesting. I might be wrong but I am thinking about time. I haven’t brought camping gear with me in order to get around quicker but without having the option of wild camping I’ve also removed the possibility of a bigger adventure. I’ll be honest though after last nights absolute disaster I really don’t fancy it. Looking back though I could have camped near the river and used that to wash in and get water from, that doesn’t remove the fact I’ve got at least an eight hour drive tomorrow though and I need to ensure a proper nights sleep. I’m now headed of Stob na Doire which sits at 3314ft and on the way there are some cool little mountaintop pools on the way which just add to the amazing scenery by reflecting the summer sky into my camera lens.

Up On Stob na Doire

When I reach the summit of Stob na Doire another hiker comes blasting up the side like a mountain goat. He stops to say hello to me, barely out of breath and very Scottish. We talk about the weather (how British) which usually I’d find tiring because I hate small talk but it’s a sunny day in the highlands so we talk like two people who just witnessed a pig fly past us and over the Glen. The dude asks me if I’ve done many of the other Munros and rather shamefully for a trained ML I’ve totally forgotten the distinction between a Munro and other mountains at this point. I’m just nodding along to what he’s saying about them because I can’t remember right now that the distinction is (I will later remind myself) a Munro is a mountain that’s over 3,000ft, or 914-metres so essentially when talking about Scotland we mean the tallest mountains in the area. There’s lots of other types of names for mountains of a certain height but unless you are planning on doing a pub quiz I don’t think anyone remembers them. Trying to hike all of the Munro mountains is known affectionately as ‘Munro bagging’ and is one of those endearingly mad activities that UK mountain enthusiasts with clearly more spare time than I have. Talking to this chap I feel like I’ve lost a few adventurer points forgetting what a Munro is but he’s seen me ascending the Mountain and says ‘I saw ye come up the scree bit man that’s pretty Gnarly!’ at which point I feel like I’ve redeemed myself and then he says ‘any wi way better be getting on’ and says goodbye before he bounces off down the mountainside like he’s taking an easy stroll down the high street not a gnarly ass mountain. I still don’t know why everyone is so friendly on mountains maybe it’s because you want to share how epic the experience is or that you instantly know you have something in common up here in the clouds. Who knows. I’ve decided that I’m going to carry onto the next peak because I’ve really picked the pace up so my next stop is Stob Coire Altrium at 3087ft. It’s pretty hot so I’m drinking plenty of water out my Camelbak during which a weird though comes over me that its like being a scuba diver, but in reverse.

The Second Summit Stob Coire Altrium

When I reach the top of Stob Coire Altrium I look back across to the previous peak. The shadows of clouds project onto the peaks of the mountains and move quickly across the landscape which is breathtaking and just highlights how massive the wilderness areas in the highlands are. Don’t get me wrong I love North Wales and the Lakes but Scotland makes these places seem tiny. Looking around I realise I’ve probably made a good choice not wild camping as there’s nothing that would be a great pitch up here, only down by the river and that will be midge central. I also really fancy a shower and I think I’ve earned it so after such a hot and sweaty day instead of pushing on for the next peak which is Stob Na Broige I start to head back. This is the hardest mountain day I’ve done in years and I’m pretty chuffed with myself. Getting on the phone I find what sounds like a perfect place to stay place called red squirrel which is a sort of wild camping camp site but also has facilities. I do want food as well but right now going and grabbing a shower is my first priority, I smell like someone dipped wet leather in a bucket of badger sweat.