Bertie bags Ben Wyvis

Have you any idea how hard it is to keep your ears in order and your beard looking neat when on top of a Scottish mountain on a windy day?


Oh the trials of being a wire-haired fox terrier with flappy little ears and a profusion of facial fuzz!


Gail and I ascended a  'Munro'* on Sunday. Ben Wyvis is the massive hill you can see on a clear day if you look northwards from Inverness. It was our first big hill climb for a while. It is all too common at these latitudes that benign conditions at the base give way to something altogether different, and almost always much windier, by the time one reaches the sub-Arctic environment of the summit plateau.





So annoying to be beaten to the top by this wee fellow (although I note he was not suffering from the same beard and ear issues as yours truly).


I should point out that Gail was looking every bit as dishevelled as me, although she seemed neither to notice nor care, perhaps because she is not the one who has to pose for all the photos in this blog! Anyway, she was too busy being enraptured by the panorama that opened up as we processed along the broad ridge, with the iconic outline of Suilven just visible in the far northwest, and nearer to the east a line of drilling rigs marching up the deep waters of the Cromarty Firth.

I'll be honest with you, towards the end of the nearly nine mile walk I was feeling a little weary, and so, I believe, was Gail. All that wind was really quite exhausting.



*In Scotland all the hills over 3000ft high are called 'Munros'. There are 282 of them.

A letter to Gail's friend Sally and a suggestion

Aberdeen,

22 June 2014.

Dear Sally,

Re: Aviemore weekend

I gather you are coming to Scotland with a friend next weekend, and Gail and I shall be driving over to Aviemore on Friday evening to meet up with you both for a couple of days of hillwalking.

Oh you can't imagine how much I am looking forward to this. I am fairly bouncing with excitement already.

I hope you don't think this presumptuous of me, as I realise you may already have planned the weekend activities, but I was wondering if I might make a suggestion?

You see, I have a blogging pal in Australia, he is very young laddie, a wee Scottie pup, and his name is Dui, after the mountain Ben Macdui. Now I have been looking on the map, and I see that a walk from the Cairngorm Ski Centre up to the summit of Ben Macdui might be an option for Saturday, provided your friend is the energetic sort. (Gail has told me how you, Sally, cycled all the way across the USA last year, carrying a tent and stuff, so I have no worries on your account).

Oh it would be so special if we could walk up there together, and you could take loads of photos of me at the summit and I could post them on my blog to show Dui what 'his' mountain looks like.

Gail says she thinks it is a good idea, provided the weather is OK, but that we should probably tackle the 'straight up and down' route rather than longer alternatives which, although appealing, might be too tough on my paws.

So how about it anyway?

You know, if you want to do something else, that's fine by me too, so long as I am included.

'Til Friday,

Toodle pip!
Bertie.

Climb every mountain?

Come on Gail! Oh come on, over here, COME ON, COME ON!!!

Look outside the window! All the snow is gone. It doesn't even feel cold. It must be nearly Spring.

And don't imagine I've forgotten what you promised last year. You absolutely promised that come Spring I would be allowed to climb a Munro.

[Readers, you know what a Munro is? A Scottish peak over 3000 ft high. There are 283 of them.  Between you and me, it's my ambition to 'bag' every single one, like boxer dog Kerry did a couple of years ago.]

So Gail, look, I've even found this book on your shelves. Called, yes you've guessed it, 'The Munros: The Scottish Mountaineering Club Hillwalkers Guide'.



Now what do I see here, scribbled this inside the book? A list? In your handwriting, Gail, if I'm not mistaken?

Lochnagar
Mount Keen
Beinn Alligin
Slioch
Sgor Gaoith
Stob Choire Claurigh
Stob Coire an Laoigh
Stob Coire Easain

Oh, is that so? Seriously? You're telling me that my predecessor Hamish the Westie in his younger days climbed each of those peaks on your list. All the way up to the top and him with such little legs?

Wow!



So these Munros would be, like, no problem at all for an eager, fit and bouncy chap like me, eh?

What do you mean a fine line between 'bounciness' and 'recklessness' Gail? Oh, you're just saying that for the first time, perhaps we should try a nicely rounded Munro, not one of the one with jaggy edges and precipitous drops.

[I guess Gail is frightened of heights but doesn't want to admit it. I'll have to humour her for now.]

Well OK then. How about Ben Macdui? Looks good eh? Scotland's second highest mountain. Dramatic and imposing, yet suitably curvaceous...

Yes, that's the one for sure. What are we waiting for?

COME ON! 

Oh what is it now?  Must we really wait for longer days too?

Sigh.....

And now I am getting a lecture from Gail who has reached for another of her books* and is reading aloud from it:

'Beginners, not unnaturally...want the startling view, the horrid pinnacle - sips of beer and tea instead of milk. Yet often the mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination, when I reach nowhere in particular, but have gone out merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend with no intention but to be with him.'

All well and good Gail. BUT I STILL WANT TO BAG MY FIRST MUNRO!


*'The Living Mountain' by Nan Shepherd.