18 April 2024
Start Point: Community car park Strathyre
Distance and ascent: 6.6km, 560m
Weather: light rain the whole way up and half way down, but with some sunshine too (even whilst being rained on). Blowy higher up.
Not quite my first hill since last September. I went up Black Hill from Crowden a week and a half ago*, but as I've been up there more than once before, it didn't get a blog post. Today was my first new hill in over seven months**. I'd like to say that I chose it carefully, but the reality was that after spending most of the journey north learning how to use QGIS software to accomplish a task related to the TGO Challenge, we were in Scotland before I had the chance to look at hill-bagging.co.uk and chose a hill for this afternoon.
The glorious sunshine to which we had awoken near Shap gave way to continuous rain soon after entering Scotland, and it stayed with us all the way to the parking area. It was still going as I stepped out of Bertie, but the forecast was optimistic that it would become showery as the afternoon went on, so I was optimistic too.
It rained on me the whole way up - an ascent that involved a small side-trip to a subsidiary summit. Looking at a map occasionally is always a good idea on these outings (an omission made even worse as I had the route on my watch, so just a glance at my wrist would have told me I was going awry).
There are two summits on this hill: the official one and another that is of equal height. I visited them both. I'm sure I could then have continued north off the summit and found a way back into the forest to gain the forest track to loop back around, but I didn't think about that at the time. Besides which, the weather was a touch on the wild side up there, so retracing my steps back along a trodden line was the easy option.
Having suffered a lack of energy and stamina this year, it was unexpected to have achieved the ascent without feeling much effort and to get back to the Bertie feeling absolutely fine. Hopefully I'll still be feeling good in the morning for another hill (or two?) just across the road.
Viewpoint on the way up
Summit selfie
(*Conrad: I'm pleased to say that we kept up our record of always meeting at least one person doing the whole Pennine Way when we're out for a little jaunt along it. This chap was on day 2, had started during the tail end of Storm Kathleen, and was not having a good time. Given that the weather was pretty grim again the following day, I wouldn't be surprised if he called it a day to return in a better weather window.
**I did have two months of inactivity due to surgery, followed by a further period of gently rebuilding fitness, but it's possible I wouldn't have been up any hills in that period anyway. What I would have done, without the enforced lay off, is have maintained my fitness to a much higher degree.)
No comments:
Post a Comment