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Meall Ghaordaidh
Map Uncertain weather but not raining so we set off 10.20, reached the summit 1.00 and were back at the car by 3.30 having only had the occasional very light touch of drizzle. Andrew had lost the boots I'd passed on to him a year or so earlier and was back in the Polish worker's boots which over the preceding two days had removed two large, circular patches of skin from his heels. Consequently he was suffering a bit. We made our way north (too far north) along the Allt Dhuin Croisg before swinging NW and failing to find the path. Nothing unusual there. We ended up plodding over heather and bog when we should have been mounting the SE shoulder of the mountain, and as it was very humid we were both soon drenched in sweat.
I did see a 6 inch long lizard and a few frogs though. One was orange. Eventually we came to a bit where the contour lines started huddling closer and closer together. Slogging on we got to within about 500 feet of the top when Andrew said he just couldn't go on any further because of the state of his feet. He said he would wait for me there. Well I wasn't going to give up at this point so after making sure he wasn't going to leave that spot I soldiered on, up an increasingly steep gully - grassy with large rocky outcrops. There was some mist drifting in and around now and Andrew was soon lost from sight. Forty-five minutes later I was nearing the top when I heard a voice hallooing - I replied but couldn't make it out properly. Finally I got to the stony summit - a trig point surrounded by a low circular wall of loose rocks - and there was Andrew. In his bare feet!
After I left he'd taken his boots & socks off for a bit of relief and after 5 minutes thought he'd go and see if he could see where I was. He couldn't but he found the wet, spongy ground wasn't too bad underfoot so just kept going. He also managed to find the right path while I was sweating up the steep way, which is how he got there ahead of me. I could hardly believe it - barefoot up a Scottish mountain - and had serious doubts about his state of mind at this point. Couldn't help laughing though and took a picture to record his noble feat :-) . The rocky summit, of course, was not so soft on the feet as the grassy bit had been, and I was also wondering if we'd ever be able to find his rucksack, socks, boots and t-shirt again where he'd abandonned them by a rock.
Anyway we set off back down the path he'd come up and soon saw the first fellow human beings since we'd started - a man and a woman toiling up the track towards us. At this point Andrew was suddenly struck by the incongruity his appearance might present and decided he didn't want them to see his bare feet in case they thought he was a bit odd. Instead he found a large boulder by the side of the track and sat on it, swinging his feet round to the other side so they couldn't be seen. By which time the sheer bizarreness of the situation had me absolutely crying with laughter. I managed to straighten my face and say hello to the newcomers but they must have heard me laughing from way off and with the tears on my cheeks probably thought me a complete idiot. We carried on and to my surprise did manage to find Andrew's gear without too much trouble.
Then we made our way back down through the bog and heather - him still barefoot. God knows what any passing walkers must have thought when they subsequently came upon naked human footprints in the mud - perhaps the legend of 'the Wild Man of Meall Ghaordaidh' was born that day, along the lines of The Grey Man who's supposed to stomp around the slopes of Ben McDui. We eventually reached the stony cart track on the lower slopes - the boots went back on at that point - then got back to the car and drove down to Callander for the night. Stayed at 'Lamorna' with Effie McKenzie - £18.50 Trusty pedometer: 5.003 miles, 12611 paces, 567.1 calories. That night we had a meal (Vegetable Darjeeling & rice) at the Raj Indian restaurant where they tried to overcharge us by £5.60. Had a couple of real ales at the Waverly Hotel, then on to the Crags Hotel - a seedy bar where a French couple were sitting on stools, the girl prattling away to the locals and the bloke just nodding & grinning. A stout old boy at the end of the bar was chatting back to them as he knocked the beer back - he looked as though he spent most of his life there. I had a Guinness but felt too bloated with the veg darjeeling to drink much more. Andrew wasn't in very good spirits and after a while, for one reason and another, tensions built up and we fell out - walked back to Lamorna separately. We patched it up later but things felt a bit awkward next day on the way south. I left Andrew in Ramsbottom and stayed the night with my aunt. | ||||
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