The Mountaineering Council of Scotland
Literary Competition 2002
by Kevin Howett
This year’s competition attracted a greater number of entries than in the past, an encouraging sign. The quality of writing was also generally higher and in both the prose and poetry categories, the winners had many others close on their heels. The judges were John F Donohoe, Ingrid Parker, Cameron McNeish and myself.
The subjects tackled in the prose category were very diverse from factual accounts of walks, climbs and ski trips in both Scotland and abroad, to fictional essays based around the reasons whey we climb and observations of human endeavour. The winner (receiving £100) was an account of the ascent of a new route on Buachaille Etive Mor, entitled “A Royal Flush”, by John Watson. John describes how this rejuvenated his climbing interest after becoming jaded and dissatisfied and eloquently captures the thrill and excitement of discovery. Second place was shared by two utterly different articles, each winning £25. An un-named piece by Thomas Dunstan gave a shiveringly realistic account of the enjoyment of wild weather conditions, whilst “There’s Numpties in them thar Hills” by Hughie Wilson encompassed winter climbing, bothy culture and poorly clad escapades, written in Scots slang. Articles that just missed out on a prize included “No Discernible Impact” by Andrew Hilton, which gave a depressing account of restricted access to the cairngorms in a futuristic tale, and “Your Company on the Hill” and “The Case Against the Munro Bagger” both by Max Cocker. The latter, a tongue in cheek derision of ‘munromania’.
The poetry category had 17 entries as diverse as the prose. “Duped” by Hughie Wilson, again in slang, shared first place with “Wild Women Walking” by Sue Mitchell. They both receive £25. Hot on their heels was “Alba’s Tears” by Bruce Goldie, which although more of a political and historical lament to Scotland’s lands than a poem about mountaineering, was beautifully constructed and split the judges opinions down the middle.
1st place winner, Prose Section: John Watson
A Royal Flush
The glass ceiling of the Millennium was fast approaching and I was dissatisfied with something in my climbing. I hankered for something hard and edgy; something to impress; something confounding, intimidating and bitterly virgin. But this was Glencoe - the conquered, the realm of the classic, the intriguing but inherited: like your Dad's patched and historic trousers.
A veil had fallen over my favourite mountains and I had stopped buying magazines, I was lethargic and the weather was bad. All my friends were the same and it just felt like the whole thing was, well, so what? I let the tea go cold again as I flicked through the guidebook, hating my 'ticks' and wondering why I couldn't have said a little more than, 'Yes, done: black tick!' I felt like I had taken no more than a peashooter to the mountains.
I worked my way through the history notes and first ascents, as I always do. Where does history lead us, I pondered: to entropy? I shivered at this conclusion. This ennui had to be countered at all costs and I resolved to do a new route. Hard and bitter.
My ambitions for climbing a new route - in the I990's in Glencoe - had naturally leaned towards the modem approach. After all, that was where the new routes lay - the thin red lines of E5 and above - and was that not where the pioneer inside should prove itself? I was mulling over this problem, blasé on Abraham's ledge one day, when I glanced to my right and saw what had been wrong with us all along, and why, when it comes to history, we assume it has to be so. I knew the guidebook well, I knew the hill well and there in front of my eyes, like staring at a Magic-Eye picture, there materialised the answer to my ennui: five unclimbed tiers of what looked like immaculate pink rhyolite. They were continuous, bar a few intermediary alps, and the rock flushed in the morning sun, embarrassed at being discovered, as though it had assumed nobody looked at it like that anymore: nakedly.
'VeeEss, I'm convinced of it', I whispered to myself. I let my imagination, unhindered at last, run up the features of the complex East Face of North Buttress. At the next belay on the Direct Route, twisting in my harness, almost pulling Sean off balance on the delicate crux below, I scanned from Crowberry Gully right round the old routes of North East Zigzag and Slanting Grooves, over to the shortening harder pitches of the East face - like a graph of the last century: long wandering routes gave way to the steep classics like Mainbrace, turning the comer down and round to the short hard test pieces of Bluebell Grooves and Craig Dhon't Woll. I turned to Sean, who was sorting the ropes. I tugged his sleeve. Biting down on a bent roll-up he agreed it looked like a good line.
'Must have been climbed before, surely,' he muttered. I sort of concurred, but didn't, because of the way the obvious sometimes has a way of hiding itself.
But there was an excitement in me: I was discovering humility, an open eye and a genetic hunger. All it took was a little luck and an eager bite on the lip. All good routes, I remembered, began in quiet apprehension and they always led you somewhere new: I yet did not know that this would be back to a time when the mountain had been approached by formal voices, surnames, the echo of hobnails and the scrape of hemp on rough rock. I held the excitement in me, like something live and pulsing in my hands.
True to form, the rest of the summer was wet, with sweeping fronts vigorously drowning weekend enthusiasm. On the first good weekend in August, I took advantage of a work-frustrated trainee doctor called Adrian Crofton and scrambled up towards the East Face, Adrian muttering about his stress and his brow knitted with hangover and clutter. At the waterslide, I pointed out the line as it opened into view.
'Oh yeah, I see where you mean,' he said. 'Never seen that before. Wonder why.'
The rock wall had big wet maroon streaks on it, but the sun was up and sizzling on the face and the prospect looked good. We roped up and merrily pointed out Curved Ridge to a couple of New Zealanders who had become confused by the sudden pop-up complexity of the Buchaille.
I looked at my own unknown walls. I resolved to set up just to the left of Brevity Crack, opening the eliminate line to allow me into what I had seen from Crowberry Ridge. The first pitch squeezed its way easily enough at about VS through overlaps and into an unusual slaty groove. Stepping onto a nose of rock, easier climbing led to the perched block of Slanting Grooves. A full fifty metres of VS: fine pitch, and a tempting crack above.
I was beginning to feel younger, in the sense of ages. I pulled Adrian up hurriedly and he noticed he was beginning to smile and rub his hands. He followed the steep crack above and barked at the sudden and intuitive simplicity of the climbing, romping and disappearing over a brow of rock into the blue. I squinted my eyes at the light the way a kid does, to see rainbows in your lashes, and thought of absolutely nothing: I just enjoyed the live tug of the rope and occasionally placed my hand on the bubbled rhyolite, on the secret belly of the mountain. Scree rustled somewhere far below, decades ago.
'Climb when ready, John!'
I cut through my vague reveries and skittered up eagerly. We debated like elders. By my reckoning, we had found the new line: two long diagonal pitches; both amenable, nowhere at all hard, but bold enough to make modem hardware humble. I beamed at Adrian on the grassy alp. The traditional feature of Judas' Rib lay above him. I nodded twenty yards to the left.
'The black groove. It leads to a roof and slab. I think we could use that to trend up and left to the higher tiers.'
Adrian opened his palms and let me lead on without argument, happy to let his moment come by and by.
Just as I set off through the heather with the coils, I saw an old grey snake of rotting hemp. I picked it up and laughed. A lasso from the past: I would have overlooked it a month ago.
The groove was harder than it looked - it vee'd up to a small roof, and I couldn't decide which side to tackle. Eventually, wiggling in some gear, I took a bold step onto the smears of the roofs lip. Swinging up to better holds I whooped with the ancient pleasure of a distinct crux completed. In this mood it felt hard, because we were unlearning our supple pride - grades suddenly went fuzzy and vanished. It felt severe, very severe!
More good rock followed and led me up to a square recess below the ever-steepening walls. I handed Adrian the lead for the next assault, persuading him to keep going up and left, into new ground.
'I think it should go out by that ledge, then up the crack. The way above looks blank, but it's up to you...'
My voice leapt through time, thrillingly backwards and forwards at the same time.
'Jesus, it looks steep, John.'
'It evens out above, I'm sure of it.'
After some wandering and route-finding out onto the left skyline, Adrian crept deviously up to a steep overlap, placed a friend and stepped down to a small ledge. He would be forced left into the unknowable. I let some slack out as he pulled the ropes for the traverse. Then he vanished and reappeared, weaving in and out of my line of sight, before breaking boldly back into it on the wall above. He had bagged the fourth tier!
I followed his devious line, oblivious to my trendy Habaneros wet from the heather ledge. At last I felt gifted by the uncaring stuff that we call rock and in those moments, following Adrian's line exactly, stepping into the airy traverse, I could have sworn an eye opened in the rock - a kingly eye: watchful, royally wet and merciful - and viewed a noble pursuit, then closed again to rest assured in its munificence.
The pitch was a beauty, requiring guile and not a little boldness and, remarkably, it worked through at a solid VS. The line was beginning to shape up as something distinct and generous.
I congratulated Adrian on a remarkable achievement, which he shrugged off modestly. We were the small kings of a distant land. I babbled enthusiasm at Adrian and spread my arms at the solid wall across from his belay.
'Pink again! The fifth tier!'
Adrian whistled a looney tune.
'Aye, pretty good.'
I stepped onto the steep final tier and followed technical little cracks to a big ledge which led me out right to a comer and then... all too suddenly, after two hours of invigorating emptiness, it was over and there was the breathing vacuum of self, which Murray talked about, and redemption, and history, and a whole lot of things that could not have been expressed but in these epiphanies that modernity rarely allows.
I had come full circle to how it had all begun. I knew something new. I had had an original thought: it had moved up out of time, invaded me in my sleep for all I knew and it had ended in a climb: a simple rock-climb.
I stood for a brief second on the North Buttress of the Buachaille, not knowing where to look - backwards or forwards - then, like everyone else before me, I began to hunt for a belay.
Joint 1st place winner, Poetry Section: Hughie Wilson
Duped
(Scrambling in Scotland)
It wiz the hailstains eftur the abseil, heavy in the gale, especially when bracin 'n' glancin aroon et the wiy aheed,
Then the cauld pinch grips, hoadin rough knoabs wi fingur tips, 'n' a lassie moovin like shes shit hursell, wan false move hen 'n' yer deed,
Lukin et the luk oan yir face ma freen, determined, moavin as we ur et a steady pace, ivur upward ur intae the mist in a disappearing act,
Up then intae the cirrus 'o' the drouth, 'n' keen, niethur couth nur uncouth, yir slittit een an upturned face see's daiths like a stoarm that nivur comes, so make yur pact.
Enjoay the menise 'o' the precipiss y novice tae this nakit oafurin 'o' peace, see yur een dragged fae the soakits, then returned tae yurself,
Come meet yur goad miny times yur I and I schoalur 'o' the mind, as yur struggul tae calm the forces, so yur move with great stealth,
Who knows when no evin you, whit coarnurs 'o' the psyche yur seek, when noo yiv nae choace, bit tae live through this fleein time,
This snatch 'o' existunce, birth like, war like, luv and luv lost like, this every thing and nuthin, but the stors ur the pub et night will be yours and mine.
Huv ye ivur seen 'o' a kind, the random thoats flash oan the screen 'o' the mind, an you analisin yursell, then the emptiness an ye move,
then you cun talk bullshit isweel, an me I'll know you, you'll talk an feel an wull yur psyche intae the groove.
So oan ye go then, make yur moav, fur oanyway ye chose, whether fate deems you win ur lose, small time ur big, your duped, soonur ur latur, it's muther naitchur. Me, ah red the guidebook as if an engineer's manual, a goat here by hook or by crook, aw the while sniffin the grun like a spaniel, ma nerves wur steady, ma hauns hud before clung tae live oan the rock, there wiz nuthin ovurlookt, ah said, am ready, nae mair talk, an ah wiz dupt.
Joint 1st place winner, Poetry Section: Sue Mitchell
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Wild Women Walking We don't do peaks, they said And so they began A whole discovery ensued They began The decisions came differently More than mere mortals They had become Wild women walking.
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Joint Second Place, Prose Section: Thomas Dunstan
Rhapsody in Grey
It's probably a good thing that you can't think straight at five thirty in the morning. In the semi-conscious haze between the reality of waking life and the conversation you've just been having with a horse, it is somehow possible to remove yourself from bed before your brain has a chance to tell you how stupid you're being. With practice you can be fully dressed and put the kettle on before you remember why you had to get up in the first place. It's a technique that has served me well and I would recommend it to anyone who is in the habit of climbing mountains during the frustratingly short days of a Scottish winter.
It was the first trip of the season for the university mountaineering club and it was set to be a rude introduction to Scottish weather for the new recruits. The minibus had been booked weeks before the inevitably bleak weather forecast could be confirmed, and any excuses about too much work couldn't reasonably be used for at least four more weeks. No. Today there would be no mercy.
“What's the plan then?”
Greg stared into the rain with weary resignation. “Glen Coe I think. Might as well suffer in style” he mumbled.
“You've heard the forecast then?”
“Yeah- still, it could be worse I suppose.”
“No it couldn't, if it was any worse we could have cancelled the trip altogether and I would still be curled up in bed talking to horses.” “Eh?”
“Never mind. Lets get going.”
We passed through the hinterlands of the Clyde Valley in the pre-dawn gloom, and as the minibus rumbled along the shores of Loch Lomond, up ahead, the Arrochar Alps slowly found some definition against the grim, Tupperware light of an overcast sky. Freshers' week was still a recent memory for many on the bus (for others, the luckier ones, there was no recollection at all). Heads were groggy and conversation was decidedly thin as everyone mourned the loss of their pillow. The rain, which up until now had been making only tentative tapings on the roof, suddenly bust into full chorus; amplified superbly by the giant steel resonator that we were travelling in.
The bus rolled to a stop at the 'Meeting of the Waters' car park; a very apt name under the circumstances, in fact, today 'the Waters' seemed to be having their annual convention. As the windscreen wipers stopped, the landscape twisted and swirled, and the colours gradually blurred - so much so that I could appreciate why the Gaels never felt the need to distinguish between grey and green. In front of us the Three Sisters of Glen Coe were poking their toes out from underneath a dark, wet duvet of cloud and the gusts of wind seemed to be trying to rock us back to sleep. Its a strange and unfortunate fact that the weather always seems far more sinister from the comfort of a warm, dry minibus than it does when you're out in the middle of it, but telling yourself this makes no difference at all.
“Wake up everyone! we're here.” I said with a forced enthusiasm that I immediately regretted; realising that there's nothing more exhausting than someone who has more energy than you. Any more careless cheerfulness could have been disastrous so I toned it down a bit...
“Half of us are getting out here to go and trudge around on Bidean nam Bian, and everyone else gets ten more minutes of dryness in the minibus while Greg drives on a bit further.” Blank faces all round. Maybe I over-compensated.
“Who's getting out now?”
The question was met with resounding apathy. Some people were starring at their feet and some were starring at the rain, but while the internal battles between reason and instinct still raged in peoples heads, a brave few found their resolve and jumped into action before instinct could regroup. We set off through the bogs towards the Beinn Fhada ridge, and even Cath, a relentlessly cheerful person under normal circumstances was reduced to stoical silence.
After half an hour or so of gentle climbing up a well worn path, somehow the day didn't seem so grim after all. Our legs and lungs finally caught on to what we were trying to do with them, and as energized blood flowed into cold extremities, the feeling of embattlement ebbed and the layers of fleecy armour were gradually shed. Finally we were starting to feel that it wasn't quite such an insane thing to be doing on a Sunday morning. Visibility was down to about fifty yards, but it didn't matter now because talk of holidays spent in the Himalayas and Alps fuelled our imagination. The thud-squelch of boots and clean, heathery air brought back images of the grandeur hidden from us today, and it was enough just to know that they were there. My summer had been spent, not in glamorous mountain ranges, but in the flatlands of the Thames Estuary, so I found myself more than usually glad just to be back in the highlands. It occurred to me just then, as it often does in the mountains that my brief deprivation during the summer had, with hindsight, been a better thing than it had seemed at the time. I took a deep breath and the air felt fresher than I remembered, the dark, towering cliffs carried a sense of drama and excitement that, I realised now, had previously been dulled by familiarity. Without realising it, some kind of internal, aesthetics gauge had been reset during my exile.
A blast of wind found a gap in my waterproof armour and drove some of the icy rain down my neck. Whingeing profusely, I realised that unfortunately my weather-tolerance gauge had also been reset. I tried to apply this gauge theory to the situation and convinced myself that if I could just put up with it, then it would become a little less miserable with every occurrence. Sure enough, after the fifth blast I had stopped yelping and after the twentieth I had even stopped swearing. My gauge had been re-centered. Hardships, I supposed, are endured only until their cause is considered normal.
As we gained the ridge the full brunt of the westerly wind made itself known to us, and the conversation once again thinned as we battled on towards Stob Coire Sgreamhach. Some meagre shelter was found behind a boulder on the last top of Beinn Fhada where we stopped briefly before heading across the saddle to Sgreamhach. Fifty metres or so below the peak the wind seemed to have eased a little. The rain, still cold and heavy of course, at least now was falling more or less vertically, and I remember having a feeling of gratitude for this that was hard to justify given the realty of the situation. The feeling didn't last long as it dawned on me with a slightly sick, draining sensation why the weather had changed. The wind wasn't blowing water in our faces any more because we were, in fact, walking in the wrong direction down the wrong ridge! Four months away from the mountains and I had completely lost the ability to read a map. Apparently some of my other mental faculties had also been reset during the summer. Sheepishly, I turned on the GPS and it confirmed my stupidity with ten-figure accuracy. It was the last thing we needed on a day like this. Luckily we hadn't gone too far (although it seemed like much further with a bruised ego) and fifteen minutes of backtracking returned us to the Sgreamhach Peak.
I resolved not to be so complacent about navigating and noted with puzzled interest that it was actually quite comforting now to have the rain being driven down my neck. As we battled on, the wind picked up, and in places our progress was reduced to a kind of bovine slog as we lowered our heads and pushed forward through the angry air mass. Some situations, I decided, would always be a hardship no matter how long you have to adjust to them. However, this was no time to be thinking too much, or even talking, since our brains were almost fully absorbed in the subconscious calculations of balance needed to make progress along a wind-swept, rocky ridge.
The next hour or so was a relentless fight against wind, gravity and cold, and was punctuated only by the occasional need to swap hands holding my hood off my face. Bidean nam Bian came and went in the general maelstrom, and as we reached Stob Coire nam Beith it brought with it a Friday-afternoon feeling of relief as it marked our exit from the ridge. We dropped off to the east into Coire nam Beith and were immediately released from the bullying wind. At last, with a chance to lift our hoods in relative comfort, I looked around and saw big grins fixed on everyone's faces - slightly perverse I thought considering the last couple of hours, but infectious. We continued on down into the corrie, and as the rain eased off to a light drizzle, we picked up from where we had left off after our conversations had been so rudely interrupted earlier by the weather.
Cloud still entirely filled the spaces between the hills, and, as so often happens, we would have to consult a glossy book of Munros to fully appreciate the views that we were missing. The odd thing was that none of that mattered at all. The relatively small change in conditions since coming of the ridge had caused waves of relief to run through everyone. We were all tired, hungry and comprehensively wet, and spirits were so high it was as if we had just spent the whole day in glorious sunshine. As we squelched our way down towards the road it became impossible not to enjoy everything; the aching in my legs faded next to the memory of having icy rain bouncing off my face, and every slip and stumble seemed positively fun compared to the battering we had endured in the wind. The descent passed almost too quickly and before long we were all sat in the pub, steaming off some of the rain and recounting our tales of suffering to anyone that would listen.
Bad weather seems to be something most people just tolerate in the mountains, but for all the gloom and misery of the morning, I remember this walk as one of the best of the season. This might appear to be the product of rose-tinted reminiscing coupled with a feeble memory, and you may even be right. Nevertheless, there's nothing quite like a sudden shift in perspective to make you appreciate what you've got. And after several hours of assault at the mercy of a high-energy air mass your 'comfort gauge' gets well and truly shifted - even recalibrated.
We mostly try to find happiness by immersing ourselves in the things that we enjoy, but the alternative is to occasionally push the balance in the opposite direction, to seek out a little 'bad weather' once in a while. The rewards come when the balance swings back towards civilised life; discomforts become more trivial, everyday dangers recede, and the mundane suddenly seems luxurious. On the ridge that day, stripped of everything but essentials, and exposed (albeit in a brief and controlled way) to some uncompromising, untempered, good, honest weather, we were served a subtle reminder of how privileged our normal lifestyles are. Even the Glasgow rain seems a little less miserable once you know exactly what it feels like to have it blasted up your nose for several hours by a gale-force wind.
I spent the journey home revelling in the often-unappreciated luxury of a cramped and smelly minibus, and I couldn't help secretly hoping for worse weather next time.
Joint Second Place, Prose Section: Hughie Wilson
There's Numpties in them thar Hills
Rab and I,
February,
some years ago during a city-link special;
two singuls tae Aviemore.
The walk in; high preshur, the auld wummin toeterin aboot abin the Chalamin gap hursell, surreal, forrinurs in wee snaw shin, hmm, the goggulls oot fur the Pools `o` Dee, magik. Blue skies again et the mooth o the great Garra corrie, where an aul baoy wiz pitchin his tent, picturesque.”Theres wur thing Rab, `Angels ridge`,” luckt Alpine tae us, “an that, `The Demons wullie`”, scary luckin, is ye`d expect.
Oan arrivul et the Courrour we wurrny really greetit wi the young German couple in occupancy, who only jist managed tae pick their faces aff the flair long enuff tae tell us they didny sprakendy English, as they angult their chairs away fae us. Aw weel, its no our tryst ur dissapintment. Wunner whit they expectit? Wunner if they speak perfect English?
Ootside we spoatit a crowd descendin Macdui,”coming here likely”. “ Aye, its getting caul innit”. “freezin”. We wur in wur bags, acroas the widest poasible boardur, us et the door gabul en, when aboot an oor eftur the storrs came oot, in they troopt, eight young soonin English, female vices tae , no sae bad. It wizny long tull aw wiz quate, no that we wur boathurt. That aul boay`ll huv been here before, up there oan his wee bit heathur.
Some time latur we wur aw wakent wi anithur entrance, east coast vices, three o them, an Goad o aw Goads, wan ca`ed Hamish, we aw rummult aboot the flair jigsaw like. Ah determined tae dream aboot getting up an oot o here quick the day, Hamish an thaim wur in pole poseetion noo, roon aboot the cookin area, we wur next.
The same vices wakent me again, this time accompanied, wi the soons an smells o bacon fryin. Ah lukt iver tae the wurktap, ah blinkt, Hammish wiz iver six fit wi rid hair an beard, his pals wurny wee boays eithur, they wur made fur the hills, last in furst oot, ah felt a grin. Cranin ivur the snoring Rab a seen a deflated bouncy castle like boady o the kirk, ah nearly laft oot lood, some een wiz peerin oot unobtrusively, aw that wiz missin wiz the wee fingur tips like 'kilroy was here' ur wiz it kiljoy?, Disny maitur, time tae get up, “ haw Rab, cumoan, awright boays?” “aye awright?”
There wiz space made fur wur stove an shin we wur ootside wi wur pre-prept egg pieces an fresh tea jist is Hamish an thaim wur feenishin theirs. A hauf a rowy later a poppt ma heed back in, wan stove being attendit wi two boadies, everybudy else stull lying clappit, oor stove hud went oot. Rab nickt back in tae soart it fur the flasks.
Two meenits latur we wur stertult wi a volley o squeeks an squeals fae within, the flames fae Rabs spult meths wur three fit in the air abin the wurktap, him an the two unfortunates valiantly managed tae grab the fuel boattuls while the rest bagwrestled. We watched is the fire deid suddenly, its shoart life spectacular. Hamish an thaim deapairtit laffin tae thursells, ah went right in tae assess the damage.
Wur trangia hud nae strap left, gone aw the gither, behin it sat a wee boays Charlet mosers, wan o the straps wiz aw shrivult up like a miniture snake skin cast oaf in the desert, it hud tried in agony tae dissapear up its ain erse, the ither like the stove`s, history, no evin a wee soulidified puddul oan the table. Rab said “sorry pal” (the only words ivur passed atween us an thaim), as the boay liftit the crampons so as no tae hurt thaim onymair. We felt incredulous een oan us as we addit the rattly stove, fuel an empty flasks tae wur waitin rucsacs and leavin wur beddin tae Goads mercy wur oan wur wiy wi the risin sun oan wur backs.
We stertit up tae wur furst exercise,`the high snaw traverse roon the shoodur ablow they roacks there`, guid it wiz tae, then drapt doon tae the lochan tae full wur flasks unner anithur big blue sky. We reflectit oan events up tae noo,
“whit aboot Hamish an thaim?”
“h`aye sum boays”
“did ye see that baldy crampon?”
“see it? Ah tried tae rescue it twice!”
“yur suppost tae cairry spare straps”
“dae you ?”
“naw”
“hope the beddins awright,its no oors”
“no much is”
“acht it wiz an accident”
Jist et that, their came fae aboot the watterfa, a lone stranger. Before he`d reacht us fur pleasantries, we`d agreed tae let him go weel oan, he`d two drapt picts an a Lowe alpine mountain cap, “ he lucks the pairt.” It wiz anithur east coast man headin west.
Next time we seen him close up wiz et the rocks near the tap, we wur aboot tae right flank when doon roon he appeart, enquirin if we hud a rope?” Aye how?”, nae ansir , he jist dissapeart back up roon, we wur puzzult no detert. So there we seen im, in against the roacks twinty yairds up luckin doon. The snaw slope swept long an wide tae the baotum an steepent jist enuff et the tap. The wiy wiz obvious so oot we stept an stertet up, wur man din the same an nivur luckt back tull we wur stonin oan the tap, where we took phoaties fur each ithur an depairtit in oaposite directions wi weelwishes, hivin nivur fun oot whit the problem wiz ur who it affectit.
Fae Cairn Tool we left the Demon tae his privacy an headit fur the courror, the dorkness bate us, it came doon in warm still air, right doon low, pitch black. We reacht the desertit refuge et the furst attempt wi skull an luck, fur ye couldny see it fae ten yairds away tae fin the door.
We wur fed an wattert, suppin oot o thermul mugs an talkin aboot strangeness, “this weather, man, its no real.” “ ah ken, ye could wear shoarts oot there” “ ye could go in the bare buff, naebudy`d see ye”
Wur heedtoarches wur iyways oan an aff an we`d a connul burnin in the windy, “ it`ll help oanybudy fin the boathy” , “ aye they`ll shin fin me sleepin then” “ach its Sunday, there`ll be naebudy here noo” “ aye wull hiv a smoke an get the heeds doon”
Ah wiz sittin et the windy en, Rab between me an the door, he didny hear it ur wiz in denial, he`s deef et times, “haw Rab, theres sumbudy et the door!”
It wiz rythmic yet there wiz an uncertainty in the three faint chaps. As we baith luckt ivur, this time, the dept collector that kens thurs sumbudy in chapt it three times. Rabs luck returnt as ah reverbiratit, it wiz me thit hud been in denial, Rab didny ken oany o the ghost stories oanywiy. Then, still in the silence, ah didny shout, “ come in its no loakt”, ah switcht aff ma heedtoarch an muttert “see who it is Rab”. He wiz the closest, it wiz an unwritten rule.
Up he goat wi a backward glance, ah noadit encouragement while thinkin aboot para-normal chap door run, bit fearin wurse. Rab walked the rice paper, then in wan move positively swung the door open taking hisself in a sweeping sidestep back against the gable w`a. The tension floodit the interiur fur a micro secunt, before being suckt back oot as in stummult a wee boay no long oot his teens, he`d obviously tane the wrang turn et the highstreet. He hud two biggur, bit mair sheepish pals oan his tail.
The three sanctury seekers stood jist inside, strainin tae see as the wee desperado spread his hons tae the flair, palms up an says tae Rab,” sorry for wetting your floor”, in the semi dorkness ah asked masell these insane questions , hus he jist hud a wee accident? Is the grey man involved eftur aw ? His accent though slightly hysterical, came fae aboot England.
His een noo encompast the area mappt oot wi his hons , he saw earth, ur wiz it concrete? Luckin up wi buildin shoke he seen the utter sparcity o it aw, then the chairs fae McBeth in the flickerin shadas an there facin him, the soul destroying hert o a long barren fire place. The tin roof an wa`s o boulders closed in oan him, the figure in the coarnur cote his attention , so his een tried tae meet mine, his hons stull palms up began tae rise, as he made tae staggur furrit he shyly pleedit “ are you the mountain rescue?”
“im ah fuck” ah retortit, turnin ma heedtoarch oan, it wurkt, he stoapt.
The biggest stooge elaboratit , “ he fell in the stream, we`re wet as well”
“aye well yir stull lucky, we don`t live here, we`re here fur fun, shut the door an come in ,whits happent?
They set oaf fae the sugar bowl fur a circular roon Lurchers crag in their clubbook timberlands, two pair o bare hons an wan bare heed among thaim. Sandwiches an juice , nae flask, jaikits ah widny wear tae ma wurk if ah hud it, aye an a crispy new pathfinder, like me wi war and peace. They`d wan aipple left an they wur cauld.
The sun hud drew thaim intae the long, lurin line o the Lairig Ghru, where eventually, the snaws et the Pools o Dee spookt thaim in the gloamin an shin the totality o the dorkness complicatit thoughts o a return via that elusive left turn.
The warm air enticed thaim oan an noo doonward wi the misleadin thought that civilisation canny be for away. Progress wiz slowin worryingly when they saw, then realised whit they thought wiz a solitary stor, wiz a light et a windy. They came tae that Light in a straight line. We disht oot aw the spares, some scoff an brewed up, it wiz enuff tae dae the joab oan a night like this, thur wiz nae nakit heeds ur hons in the hoose; but they wur insistently gurnin fur hame.
We`d two heed toarches an a nine mull rope fur honloops fur the blind. So we oafurt this as a lesson in futility, packt up, geart up an wur back in the boathy in an oor. Noo the three men wiser wur resigned tae an uncomfortable night oan tap o oor empty rucsacs an their skull bags wi only oor bivvi bags is a toeken duvet, while we goat sum sleep. When we arrived here yesturday, Rab hud viced concern et his ain wisdom fur packin his trainurs, fur his pack wiz heavy, bit his feet wur weel kent. Noo he thought, whit aboot, weathur permittin, enjoying the stroll oot the moarn in trainers, wi the option o bootin up, while the three numpties took turns each et cairrying his ruc sac. The weathur permittit an that's the wiy it went . In the guid six oors it tane, it goat steadily cauldur an windiur, tull the prodiguls wur delightit tae see reliable machinery again, in noo sub zero temperatures. So wi the lessun suitably underlined, they aw vowed no tae take it up, no evin in the summur, we advised mair research as we moaturt taewards the Winking owl, “plenty o room in the back here, eh Rab?
There wiz jist enuff time fur thaim tae buy us a pint o guiness before we`d tae catch wur bus. They wurny delightit enuff tae take the thirty mile detour getting us hame, they wur greeting aboot their wurk, miby it wiz the weight o Rabs rucsac that din it, ur last nights promise that they`d buy the diner the day.
Best o luck tae thaim o oanywiy.