Over
the previous night’s dinner, a plan to climb Foinaven had been
mooted. Jesper and I had been circling
around it the last three days, admiring its grey bulk and steep flanks, and,
despite the efforts of the last three days' hard walking, we couldn’t resist coming along
too. I fuelled myself with
granola and waited for Dave C, our transport man, to arrive. He was there on cue so we drove down to Keoldale to
meet Heather and Dave W. The forecast
warned us of rain later but for the time being it was dry, albeit with low
cloud shrouding the summits. If the
weather stuck to the forecast, that cloud should lift later in the day.
The
first part of the walk was a long, if easy, slog along an estate path. The sun was threatening to appear and,
anxious to avoid making my shiny red nose any redder, I slapped some cream on. A Land Rover passed us on the track and I
noticed a cage in the back, inside which perched a serene-looking raven. I could only think it was an injured bird
they were intending to release somewhere, but it seemed a long way to go just
to find somewhere to set it free. A
little while later the car came back the other way. The raven was still in its cage in the
back. Perhaps it was a pet they were
taking out for a scenic tour.
After
the level track, we finally turned off uphill.
Dave W led the way, doing his best to find a route despite there not
being much of a path to speak of. We
climbed steadily up to one corrie, Coire Duaill, then more steeply up to a
second, Glas Coire Granda. The going got
even steeper, and more rocky, as we then made our way onto the ridge at Bealach
nan Carn. Amongst the boulders and not
much below the cloud base – stubbornly unlifted – we waited a short while for a
struggling Jesper to join us. He
admitted he was finding it hard work and that, with the low cloud, his
motivation wasn’t that high.
Nevertheless, we pushed on.
The
next section showed us what steep really meant.
It was wet and grassy, with rocks and boulders sticking out here and
there. You didn’t have to lean very far
forward to find yourself with your nose to the slope. It was precarious with dodgy footholds and a
long drop behind. Heather found it very
trying, especially with her particular bugbear of misty ascents, and Dave W had
to keep up a constant litany of encouragement to keep her going. Dave C helped with distraction tactics,
talking of life in York and how planning for the future is all hot air when you
don’t really know what’s coming next.
Jesper, somewhere below us, had to fend for himself.
Just
below the first summit, Ceann Garbh, we paused again amongst rocks to let Jesper
catch us – in the mist it would have been crazy to split up. As a full party, we climbed onto the main
ridge and felt the full blast of the wind.
It battered me like a like a heavyweight, pushing my feet and legs
around as I tried to step through the boulder field. As we started the ascent to the main summit I
could feel my fingers going numb in the wind-chill so I stopped to get some
thicker gloves out, frantically fiddling at zips and buckles with frozen
fingers. Material flapped about, straps
whipped my face, Velcro attached itself to everything except the surface it
should. It took an age to achieve this
simple task, all the while being ripped into by the murderously chilling gale.
Strapped
up and better insulated than before, I continued the march uphill, slightly
behind the others. It wasn’t a long
climb and we were soon together at the top.
We tried to pose for summit photos while staggering around in the
unrelenting tempest then decided it wasn’t a place to stop long, although there
was a tiny area behind a big cairn that gave a surprising amount of shelter.
The
route we were following was from the Walk Highlands website. The return journey wasn’t the same as the
outward one, so we could avoid the precipitous route we took upwards, but
didn’t present a very easy descent. It
dropped off the side of the ridge at a seemingly arbitrary point and turned
down through large, unstable boulders, before a jink left to avoid some
crags. Jesper wasn’t very impressed with
the route though we all made it off the steep bits safely. The final section was another long walk, this
time over pathless moorland, studded with bogs and lochans. The advertised rain arrived here, first as
drizzle, then imperceptibly heavier. Around
the far side of one lochan we found a hind staring at our approach, not
particularly bothered about us but wary.
She moved a little further away before standing her ground and watching
us pass.
By
the time we regained the road we were dripping wet in the remorseless
rain. I didn’t exactly question my
sanity but I wondered how I would answer the question, ‘Did you enjoy your
walk?’ It would be hard to say it was
enjoyable, exactly – with the steepness, the cloud, the wind and the rain – but
I would hesitate to say I didn’t enjoy myself.
You could say it was a challenge overcome or another Corbett ticked off,
but those pretexts don’t seem to do. There’s
something about being involved with the mountain, in whatever mood it’s in,
perhaps to do with Nan Shepherd’s (via Rob Macfarlane) walking ‘into’ the
mountain (as opposed to ‘onto’). The
other day on Arkle, when the stormy weather had cleared and we were given a
glorious day, again I didn’t think about having ‘conquered’ the hill, but that
we had been allowed our time on it in comfort and safety by some sort of
grace. We didn’t come to claim the hill
as ours, we were just granted our time there, to experience it, to get to know
it, to bear witness to its gravity, its geology and its beauty.
