"It's not cold enough to die" were the comforting words offered to me by The Editor as we decided if we should spend a December night here, on the east side of Loch Ericht; X marks the spot:
Two days later and I still haven't recovered feeling in the outer quarter of my left foot's big toe.
You'll see from the map that there are no hotels, B&Bs, camp sites, houses, roads, tracks, paths, or even animal life for many, many miles. And it's now 4pm in December; i.e. dark. It was either this, or risk going "over the top" as they called it in 1914, back over some hill that led to ?. Oh, and did I mention that we weren't carrying adequate equipment for such an event. It was only a stroke of laziness that meant a torch had remained in my rucksack from a previous outing.
This won't be happening again; eBay is going to take a battering over the next couple of weeks and I'll be carrying enough equipment to invade a small country, with leftovers to supply the SAS.
Had we actually had the section of map covering this area, we would have chosen not to walk towards Dalwhinnie along this route even in bright sunshine, let alone in near total darkness. In reality, had we not been focused on dealing with my lady issues, this wouldn't have happened in the first place. Mental note to self: wait until the car is in sight before opening up any cans of worms.
I actually found the episode perversely enjoyable, as it was a proper survivalist test of stamina. I now know that I can physically cope with an unprepared 6 and a half hour walk out to avoid potentially very serious consequences, although it would have been better conducted on a warm, sunny, summer's evening.
The other positive outcome is that I now appear to have developed calf muscles similar to those of an elephant and I am very good at contouring around a hillside that slopes upwards to my right, especially at night.
I have eaten chips and sausage rolls in celebration.
Current weight is 13 stones (182 pounds / 82.5 kg).
1 comment:
It's all chaos these days.
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