"Red Ron Hill's Bloke" Reneges On Ridge - Blames Blisters

Ullapool Scotland Trip. Feb/March 2003. Pete Smith

Sixteen of us met up in Ullapool, Scotland for the annual Colmcille Climbing Club trip. There were people there from Inverness, Edinburgh, Lincolnshire, Dungiven, Derry, Ballymoney, Portstewart and other far-flung spots.

I expect other writers will soon be submitting detailed reports, so I'll be brief.

Day 1. Saturday 1st March. St. David's Day.
After a 12 hour journey the day before (for me - some travellers had done more), we had slept well and risen at 6am for an early start on Beinn Dearg. The temperatures were so mild that we held out little expectation of finding ice, but after a 2 hour walk in we were pleasantly surprised to see snow and ice on the faces and gullies. OK, it wasn't in the best of nick, but a few of us managed to get some reasonable stretches of climbing at about grade III

Day 2. Sunday 2nd March
For some reason, my boots decided to make mince of my feet having never given me blisters before. For 4 hours I soldiered upwards enduring pain that would have turned lesser men to quivering wrecks. The Geneva Convention expressly forbids the infliction of torture like this, but if you do it to yourself you can't really expect the boys in blue helmets to run in and intervene. By noon we were on the An Teallach ridge

at a height of 3150 feet and I was begging my comrades to let me complete the circuit with them, but they just insisted that I should return to the car and rest. "Pete", they said, "you are such an example to us all with your strength, fortitude, stamina and cheerful disposition, but we just can't see you continue to risk death by depedification like this." Obviously, in the face of such loyal and caring friendship I was powerless to carry on. I wiped a tear from my eye and turned on (what was left of) my heel and traipsed back to the car.

On arriving there I was thirsty. The car was locked and I was out of water. Spotting a stream and an old cider can, I quickly calculated that a fire was required to heat a canful of water to boiling so that I could safely drink it. I collected a few sticks and a bit of bracken and soon had a billy bubbling with boiling brookwater.

I stripped off my socks and wrung out the blood before hanging them near the blaze to dry out. Then I settled down for a long wait as the rest of the wayfarers wended their way off the wild tops and through the woods.

I listened to the croak of the pheasants in the rhododendrons and the song of a red-breasted robin on a bare bough of a birch. I watched the embers of the fire growing deeper and I fed the hungry flames at the top, and I gloried in the heat and the comfort it afforded. I gazed around at the Scot's pines - tall, elegant, literati bonsai trees a hundred feet high. I cursed the occasional passing car because I didn't want to share this place, especially sitting at the roadside with bare feet, boiling a tin can on a fire.

Eventually I was joined by Phil, Dave and Eoin.

We were still all locked out of the car, so we sat round the fire listening to robins and pheasants etc. etc. Then the gamekeeper turned up and ordered us to extinguish our only home comfort before he set the polis on us. Dave felt this was unjust, discriminatory and an all-round bad thing. The gamekeeper felt Dave was an all-round bad thing and made his feelings very clear. Before the shotgun could be drawn the rest of us intervened to pour oil on the troubled waters, and waters on the troubled fire. Once the embers had gone cold and black, the gamekeeper's mood lifted and he was a new man altogether. Ten minutes later he was back with mugs and coffee, and he and Dave were bosom buddies wishing that they had a wee dram to be shared betwixt them to seal their undying friendship.

Day 3. Monday
I wimped out. Eoin wimped out. Dave, Bill and Phil went to Stac Polly. Then we went home.

[ More Photos of Scottish Winter Climbing ]