I Was Roped Into it, She Was Later to Declare

I had been thinking about good ideas and their consequences. A certain William Hunt came to mind. In 1849 he, very cleverly, invented the safety pin. He, not so cleverly, sold the idea for $400 and yes, you’ve guessed it, he died penniless.

Something a bit more personal in the “good idea” stakes came to mind concerning a Munro-bagging outing. Our goal was the South Clunie ridge in Glen Shiel. The glen was the site of a battle in the first Jacobite rising. It was another battle which I will be relating, however. We were based, over the October school break, in Lochcarron on the side of the loch of the same name. After a spectacular drive down to Glen Shiel, the car was left to start the climb. Our goal was three of the seven Munros on the ridge. When I say we, I am referring to my long-suffering wife and myself. She was a very keen hillwalker but was less enamoured of Munro-bagging than me.

It was decent weather for October, cool with mist gathering. There was little to see as we climbed upwards. We hoped it would clear but were confident of our navigation skills. As we gained height the mist became thicker and the temperature cooler. I reckoned we were near the ridge and easier going when the mist suddenly disappeared as I emerged into clear, blue, sunny skies. It was much warmer from the welcome heat of the sun. It was lovely.

I hurried on totally clearing the cloud layer. I stopped to look back at my wife as she emerged from the misty blanket. I could only see her head and shoulders. She had paused, like me, to take in the view. It was our first experience, despite many years of traipsing the hills, of a temperature inversion. My wife joined me, and we sat on a large stone, partly to rest, but mostly to marvel at the phenomenon. It was an amazing sight to behold. It was like looking out an airplane window with an endless stretch of white cloud, very flat, like a pure white sea except there was no plane, no window and you were immersed in it, as if you were standing on it. The only thing visible in the flat white expanse was the occasional mountain peak poking through. We savoured the experience.

Reluctantly we turned our back on the view and continued along the ridge heading for the first 1010m summit. The going was easy enough, just an undulating path narrowing to a knife edge occasionally. We continued to the next summit, 1004m, then onward to the last one, a pleasant 918m. So far, so good. All had gone well, and the inversion had been a bonus. It was at this point that the “good idea” part of the story kicked in.

To finish our day, we faced a choice. A long walk further along the ridge and down to a low pass and the road or a more dramatic and direct descent down from this summit. It looked ok on the map, so we opted for the latter and headed down a steep, tricky, rocky slope. We were making good progress when our descent came to an abrupt halt. In front of us was a sheer vertical drop which ran right and left for as far as we could see. I peered over the edge. There was a bit of an overhang so I couldn’t see the bottom. Twenty meters or so away was a steep waterfall with a meter-wide ledge at the bottom of it. It would be too difficult to retrace our route back up to the ridge and, since the light was fading, going down seemed the best option. Fortunately, I had decided to bring a length of rope today. I usually don't. There were only two options: lower ourselves down the cliff – without knowing if the rope would be long enough – or use the waterfall, with only a 20 meter maximum drop to a narrow ledge. That looked like the best option. I would lower my wife down and while still attached to the rope, she would check if we could continue down from there. I gently lowered her down through the waterfall and she reckoned we could climb down to more manageable ground. I quickly abseiled down and retrieved my rope.

The October light was failing. We continued down the steep hillside following a burn toward a stand of trees. We had to use our head torches. On reaching the forest, tightly packed sitka spruce, we made our way through it still handrailing the burn. After fifteen minutes we hit a two-meter deer fence. We heard the sound of a passing vehicle. The road must be nearby. Searching for a better place to climb the fence we stumbled onto a large hole in it. It was waist high, and we gratefully scrambled through. A final plod through more trees, still beside the burn, brought us to a stone arched bridge. We had finally reached the road. It was now well after eight o’clock as we set off for the half-hour walk back to the car. We had started just after nine that morning. The walk back to the car felt like a dawdle despite our fatigue. An hour’s drive got us back to Lochcarron.

The following spring we revisited Glen Shiel and walked the rest of South Clunie ridge. There was no inversion and no problems either, but the midges were out in force for a while. We often look back on that adventure, but the abiding memory is always of the stunning inversion. When we reflect on the decision we, well me really, took and with good old hindsight we agreed it was perhaps not the best idea.