Wayfarer's Scotland
Alright, let me just get this out of the way. Despite all the amazing things I have been up to lately, I have been too busy, and more recently, too ill to update this blog. But I am back now and hopefully will be able to keep up with myself a little better!
So right off let's get into it! I am a member of the university hiking group, the Wayfarers, and got to go on their annual hiking trip to Scotland. This trip is a week long hiking extravaganza! Usually the trip goes to Isle of Skye (aka the most magical and amazing place on earth), but this year it was centered in the area around the town of Oban on the west coast of Scotland. I was a little bummed about not going to Skye, but I got over it! It still Scotland either way, and I adore that country more than any other!
The drive up was long, I think around 7 hours, and once we got up around Loch Lomond I was reminded how violently nauseous motion sickness can make me. Needless to say this reminder set me on a mission to find the best seat in the van we used for transport for avoiding getting sick.
We arrived sometime in the night at where we would be staying. It was made up of an apartment and two trailers. The girls of the trip (four of us) went in one trailer. This trailer ended up being a poor decision as it had many heating issues throughout the week (it was very cold!). We only managed to stay warm at night by filling up these hot water bottles we found and wrapping ourselves around them all night x.x
The next morning we got a look at where we actually were, which was right on the shores of Loch Etive!
On the way up we had the lovely experience of being passed by locals walking their dog..always a bit embarrassing when you are wearing full on hiking gear! When we got to the top of the hill a cloud had completely engulfed it and you couldn't see anything, so we headed back down pretty quickly. Once we got to the bottom we decided to cross the street to the beach while the rain had stopped for a bit. It was well worth it, the beach was absolutely gorgeous!
There were also these creepy sheep that would scream at you when you walked by....scream. As you can tell the first day was a little rainy. We wanted to start off on a relatively easy hike, so we headed out to a hill that overlooked the ocean. The weather was on and off, and the hill was pretty boggy...it became a contest of how long you could keep your feet from getting wet!
As you can see, it was incredibly rocky! There were some sandy bits as well, but either way I had been hoping there might be a seal somewhere about...but alas none to be found! (It's okay, I saw a seal two weeks later!) We had to cross over a small crevice to get to one part of the beach, an event which at the time seemed like a big deal but compared to some of the things we did later in the week was actually pretty wimpy.
The great thing about this beach was that you could see way out over the bay...and the rain storm that was making its way right towards us! We walked back as quickly as possible and right as we got to the van it DOWN POURED. It was really a case of perfect timing.
The next day we descended into a wintry hellscape...What started out as a leisurely hike up the side of a mountain turned difficult very quickly. The walk up started out on a maintenance road for a hydroelectric dam that is up in the mountain. Up around the dam is where the snow began, and naturally it was a lot colder. The dam itself was interesting, I had never seen one located in that type of place before.
This was the view from the top of the dam. This is also the elevation where there was still good visibility, but going any higher it started to go away....
So we headed off around the reservoir to try and find the path which was conveniently under 3-4 feet of snow. I should just say, we got lost. We got really lost. The visibility quickly diminished to around 10 feet in front of us, and we could not tell where we were. The peak we intended to climb was off to our right, but we went up the left up a different peak. And when I say "up", I mean "up"! We were essentially climbing up a vertical cliff, kicking into the snow to create foot holds. It was somewhat terrifying, and I am sure if we could have actually seen what we were doing it would have been more terrifying! This was also the whitest situation I had ever been in (that sounds weird...). You could not tell the difference between the sky, the ground, anything. It was all completely white. We joked that we had died and gone to heaven, but later decided it was probably more likely purgatory.
And part of the climb. I like to be at the front of groups like this, so I kept behind the leaders. This is at a point where we were resting while everyone caught up. You can see the group at the bottom and how steep the section they are going up is x.x
The climb up honestly wasn't too bad, but once we got to the top everything went horrible. It was probably the worst wintry weather conditions I had ever been outside in. Intense knock-you-over wind mixed with ice/snow that ripped your skin off...yea the layers couldn't protect me from that! We made our way down as quickly as possible. When we finally got back to the bottom, everyone was completely drenched and freezing cold. Hot showers were in order!
Day 3 was *supposed* to be awful weather, so we decided to take it easy. I may have pushed for an easy day because my legs were spent after the climb from earlier. We went up to an area called Argyll, one of the most historically significant and sacred places in all of Scotland. The valley is literally covered in ancient sites, including the hill fort of Dunnad, the center of the ancient kingdom of Dalriada.
It was extremely windy....extremely windy. However the weather was so much better than expected. It was mostly sunny, and it would occasionally hail a bit, but the hail would only last for a few minutes at a time and you could always see it coming.
We walked through the valley and saw some ancient sacred sites including a few tombs. The tombs were pretty cool as a few you could actually go down into them.
We also saw some stone circles! My first ever stone circles, I was very excited.
Being in a place like this is always interesting. For thousands of years, for whatever reason, people viewed this valley as sacred. The evidence of their belief is everywhere in the form of these stone monuments they left behind. Even after the sacred nature of the valley was lost, it remained its importance. Now it is just a tourist attraction with a few minuscule villages scattered around it. Time is a cruel mistress.
Overall it was a relaxing, pleasurable day that fed the history nerd inside of me. There was one moment where we had to walk through a path that was 80% cow poo, but it was fairly easy walking the rest of the day. There was one thing that caused me concern, however, and that is how exhausting I found it walking up the one tiny hill we went over. My legs were seriously fatigued from the day before, and yet I ignored that the next day when I made the hardest climb of my life...
The next day we had the option to go on a nice, low level walk next to a lovely stream, or to climb Beinn Dorain. Beinn Dorain is not a massive mountain at 1076 meters, but that is still taller than any other that I have climbed. At the beginning of the drive to the two hikes, I was 95% sure I was going to do the low level walk. I was too tired from Monday, and the weather was not looking good. However, as we got farther along on our drive, the weather started to look better, and I foolishly started to get optimistic and decided to take on the mountain. The fact that I was one of four people who decided to do so should have told me a little bit about what I was in for. Ironically, although I did not realize it until two weeks later, I had been to this mountain before. Rather, I had driven past it three years previously on my first ever trip to Scotland. Also little did I know that I would be returning to it in two weeks time....
Anyways, to the climb!....which shall be continued in the next edition! (I know, I am sorry, but really this was a week long trip, did you really think I was going to pack it all into one post???)
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