Web Development by Alistair Robinson

A serious disagreement threatens to bring to an end the very successful hillwalking duo of the Robinson brothers (Stu and me). We’re both passionate, committed people, so it’s no surprise that it happened; and it’s more of a challenge to resolve it than it is to struggle up a steep slope of scree or navigate over boulder fields in thick cloud.

I won’t explore the ins and outs of the argument on this blog, but the whole thing is quite interesting. The crux of it is that Stu is an arrogant, selfish little – no, just kidding. The real crux of it is that my photography can slow us down sometimes, and on two recent walks (not our most recent walk, described later in this post) Stu has found himself far ahead and alone.

Until now we’ve been able to accommodate our differences quite easily. He generally has an eager, impatient temperament, while I am unhurried and leisurely. Also, our reasons for walking, while they do overlap, are different. I won’t presume to try to list Stu’s reasons for hillwalking, but we probably share the following ones:

Enjoyment of camaraderie and good conversation
Brotherly bonding
A shared sense of freedom
The shared experience of testing oneself
The challenges and satisfactions of talking through problems and coming to decisions, with a similarly-motivated intellectual equal

The argument flared up in an email coversation after the walk described below. At the time of writing I don’t know where things stand, but I feel that the partnership is too good to come to an end only three years after it began.

And besides, he’s got the car.

Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’Chroin

Starting from Ardvorlich on the south bank of Loch Earn, we went up Ben Vorlich and then up Stuc a’ Chroin, which lies nearby. Except for the first and last hours we were in cloud the whole way, and this partly explains why I kept up with Stu throughout the walk: I didn’t take many photographs, because my camera couldn’t see any more than I could.

Regular readers will know that on the previous walk we were reckless, complacent and ill-prepared. We made up for that this time, and never have preparation and careful navigation been more important. The poor visibility was continually challenging, and even with the map and compass we were close to going very badly wrong on one occasion, as I describe below.

The climb to Ben Vorlich from Ardvorlich was very easy, mainly because it was on a good path all the way to the top. It seems a rather tame peak because of this, and yet it does have that special high peak feel right at the top. Fenceposts marked the way between the summit of Ben Vorlich and that of Stuc a’Chroin, staying on or near the tops and ridges and the crest of the bealach between the peaks. It had no fencing wires between the posts, but I suppose that in the past it demarcated the border between land estates.

It was difficult to find our way on the bealach, a much more complex feature than it seems from a distance and much more time-consuming to traverse than expected. We were unsure of which way to go a couple of times, before we realised that the fenceposts would be a good guide. Stuc a’Chroin rises up quite suddenly, especially when you’ve had no warning of its proximity. The decision at this point was crucial. Should we climb this peak at all, given that it was a scrambling route on wet rock with little visibility? We didn’t know about any other route, and we couldn’t go wandering off to look for one in those conditions, so the choice was to scramble up or return to the car. It looked dangerous, because:

If there was no path, then navigating on a scrambling route would be very difficult;
We could easily lose each other in those conditions, and it’s surprising how the mountains can just swallow up the human voice;
The rock was all schist, which is slippery when wet;
There was a lot of loose rock, and it was obvious from the rubble at the bottom that it was a very unstable cliff;

So I was inclined just to return to the car – an attitude I justified with these concerns about safety but which was really just laziness: after doing one Munro I’m sometimes not in the mood for another heart-busting workout, especially if there’s some unenjoyable terrain to cross, in this case a field of angular boulders littering the foot of the cliff. This retiring reluctance always passes, however. In this case Stu suggested we walk up for some distance to see what it was like, which I agreed to, and we found that it was easy enough, with a path of sorts most of the way. There was loose rock all over the place, and on one occasion I dislodged a big one and sent it hurtling down the slope. We both stared at it, willing it not to hit any of the people below, until Stu realised how useless that was and shouted “watch out below!”

http://www.mrsbrowns.co.uk/acatalog

I was energized on this part of the climb by some pieces of tablet. And while I still think that the mighty little Chomp is the best chocolate bar there is, henceforth on the mountain it’s got to be tablet, or perhaps kendal mint cake. It must be the sheer sugariness of it. Chocolate – especially those posh dark chocolate buttons from Coco that I had on the day – is far less sugary and therefore less effective as an energy-booster.

The route up the cliff ended abruptly, opening onto a small flat summit with cairns and an engraved stone in memory of Donald Stuart, founder of the Falkirk Mountaineering Club. Though we could see nothing, we together worked out that this was not the top of Stuc a’Chroin, as we had presumed – that would have been too easy. As Stu likes to say, the Munro always makes you work that bit harder.

It was a gentle climb along the broad ridge to the actual summit, where we stopped for a short while to rest. My concern was not about our present situation, but about navigating across the moorland to get back to the glen, once we had descended from this peak. All we had to do here was retrace our steps to the other end of the ridge and wind our way back down the cliff. So we set off back along the line of fenceposts, and after about fifteen minutes they began to veer off and head down the side of the mountain. There was a path here and we figured this might be preferable to retracing our steps all the way, which we always try to avoid. But I sensed I was losing my bearings (I didn’t know the half of it) and looked at the compass to find that the direction that was supposed to be south was actually north. While my mind was still reeling I told this to Stu, and he was equally bewildered.

I studied the map and after a while discovered the truth. It was a truth so obvious once accepted, but, prior to this, so outside the field of normal expectations that it eluded us for many minutes. Setting off from the summit, we had followed the fenceposts in the wrong direction, south instead of north. A spectacular mistake, the realisation of which stunned us into head-shaking and self-admonishment. It was a further few minutes before we came upon the best – really the only – plan of action: we had to return to the summit, so that we were guaranteed to find our way again by following the fenceposts in the right direction. This was uncomfortable, because in that fifteen minutes we had descended quite a way, and there was a tempting-looking route skirting northwards around the summit. But it had to be done, and this way we avoided getting lost.

And so we learned another rule: In bad conditions, before you set off again after a stop, consult the map and compass to establish your bearings and work out where to go next.

This is by no means obvious and doesn’t occur to one naturally. Only a mistake such as this could have taught us it.

To conclude, an appeal: if you want to help us preserve our hillwalking relationship, and thereby also the quality of these blog posts, please send in your messages of support. Also, any independent diplomacy or arbitration would be very welcome.

Tags: highlands, hillwalking, mountains, walking
Posted in personal, places, walking | 1 Comment »