It’s been a while since I accidentally revisited a hill in ignorance of my previous visit, but that’s exactly what I did today. With my two visits having approached from opposite directions, the first I became aware of the inadvertent repetition was when I just went to save today’s gpx file to find that I already had two files for this hill, one labelled ‘bike’ and one ‘walk’. My previous visit was on 17 May 2018, and now that I’ve refreshed my memory by reading my blog post, I remember it well.
Other than a waste of fuel, I’m amused, but in no way annoyed at the repetition, as despite the terrain being decidedly soggy on this pathless hill, and notwithstanding the horizontal drizzle that hit me for most of my ascent, I had a really good outing. Somehow yomping through (relatively easy, in the grand scheme of these things) heather and bog on this hill was more pleasing than another march up an engineered path or track.
The rain drifted away as I completed the final bit of the ascent, so I had a view to the south from the summit…
whereas the rain that had recently left me was curtailing visibility to the north.
Obligatory summit selfie.
As can be seen from the map snippet, I didn’t exactly retrace my steps on the way back. Some bits of my descent route were better than what I’d chosen on the way up, others weren’t. The key tip that I’d read on hill-bagging.co.uk* was to turn right at the fork in the track that leads the first few hundred metres towards the hill; it’s just a pity that I’d forgotten that tip until I reached that very point on my return.
(*Oh dear! I now realise that one of the logs I saw on hill-bagging was my own. I only got as far as ‘from Wolftrax’ and stopped reading as that start point was irrelevant to me today. If I’d just skimmed the second line I would have seen my blog address.)
It gives me some relief to find that others have done multiple unintended ascents. Several of mine come to mind.
ReplyDeleteThere's no harm in the occasional accidental multiple ascent. I've done the same on Shutlingsloe!
ReplyDeletePleased to see you are enjoying some outings, and I hope Mick is recovered from his Lakeland jaunt.