Ardnamurchan. I was reminded of it recently by S., who looked upon the area as the perfect place to live. I'd first heard of it from Julian Pallister, a school friend with whom I had shared blues records and climbing dreams. As a boy, he'd gone camping there with his parents most years and as a result Ardnamurchan was for him synonymous with halcyon bliss. As we were up for a few days visiting Victoria, we took the opportunity to fill in what for us was still a blank on the map of Scotland. After a morning being guided up Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor by P., I met Carol, Vic and Anna at the Clachaig Inn, from where, fortified by a traditional Scottish liquid lunch, we set off merrily for the Corran ferry. The ferry permits the crossing of the Corran narrows of Loch Linnhe. Just a couple of hundred yards and you are deposited in that magical other world of the West of Scotland. We motored southwest down the lochside to Inversanda, then cut inland. We drove across the bridge over the Amhainn Coir 'an Iubhair where the path to the Garbh Bheinn of Ardgour commences. A few months previously I had been up there with Chas, hoping to explore the precipitous northeast face of the mountain. We had set off up Glen Iubhair in an optimistic frame of mind, but before long the rain set in. We spent the day getting hopelessly drenched as we wandered pointlessly up to the head of the corrie and back down again. Returning, we were unable to recross the burn where we had originally come over, as the waters had risen in a surging spate. We splooshed our way back to the bridge through the pathless bog and heather of the right bank and ... thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I have always found something particularly joyous in "pointless" mountaineering. It's almost an analogy of life itself. You can pretend to yourself, and others, that your life is a series of successes deliberately sought out and purposefully achieved, but, when all is said and done, it don't amount to a hill of beans. "Pointless" mountaineering returns us to mountaineering's real point - that it is an activity that allows us to taste our lives, free, for a moment, from the automatic concerns for our reputation.
Pressing on, we ran out of wide road around Strontian. Once you're on the single-track roads, you're in the real West of Scotland. European money has helped pay for an upgrade - not widened, but resurfaced and clearly marked down both sides by a clear white line. The fluent rhythm of the white lines invested the drive with a sort of abstract kinetic beauty. We swept on to Salen, following the coves and inlets of the northern shore of Loch Sunart, through a romantic tangle of ancient, stunted oak forest. Reaching the hotel, we checked into our beautifully appointed room, flopping luxuriously onto the big brass bed, enjoying spectacular views of the sea-loch, framed by the sash window. Being en famille, we ate in the restaurant, but had a drink in the bar as they took our order. The bar was perfect of its type - the Highland hotel back-bar snug. Sadly it is a threatened species and therefore worthy of careful anthropological investigation. Cosy, unaffected, atmospheric and tiny, intimacy is guaranteed by the fact that it is invariably ram-jam packed with punters demonstrating a single-minded devotion to getting tight. Sports-jacketed tourists, Aran-sweatered hikers, locals in blue dungarees and fold-down wellies stand elbow to elbow at the bar putting it away. Conversation rises to a cacophonous crescendo of enthusiastically held views. Shouted orders emerge indistinctly from a sea of sound. Fistfulls of pints are passed from hand to hand over the heads of the crowd. The bar staff work on with a concentrated rigour of attention. Nip after nip is pressed from the upside-down whisky bottles to disappear down the throats of the locals as they give (yet another) demonstration of what real drinking is about. No-one can drink like the Gaels. Even the girls will take on all comers and win hands down. Could it have something to do with the stance? Both arms and part of the upper body leaning heavily on the bar, the left leg supporting below, while the right leg is braced at an angle of 45 degrees, the wellie achieving an unrockable friction grip on the lino floor. The mellifluous yet strangely precise West Highland voices add their own aural colour to the proceedings. You might even hear Gaelic spoken - Ardnamurchan is a bulwark of Gaelic on the Scottish mainland. When I was young, Scotland was full of such places. My personal favourite was the back bar of the Loch Ericht Hotel at Dalwhinnie, sadly destroyed by fire. Still, a dignified end compared to most snugs, which were largely "modernised" to become like anywhere else - soulless lounges with fruit machines, canned music and ersatz beer.
The next day we set off on our pilgrimage to Ardnamurchan Point, the westernmost point on the Scottish mainland. The route continued along the lochside until we were confronted with the broad bulk of Ben Hiant, forcing us to cut inland and follow the road across the moor. The ever-widening sky and the growing clarity of the light betrayed the presence of the ocean even before we could see it. Then there it was in all its boundless immensity. From the lighthouse on the Point itself you look out to infinity. And at a level below (or is it above?) ordinary consciousness one is visited with an almost physical sense of one's personal insignificance before something so vast. Instinctively we draw back from the full implication of the experience by offering some feebly inadequate comment on the view or finding some footling practical distraction. As Eliot said: "Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot stand very much reality."
To the north lies the Isle of Skye and in between, sounding like some necromancer's conjuration, the "small isles", Rhum, Eigg and Muck. Back in the eighties I had gone with Richard Applebee on a climbing expedition to Rhum. We disembarked on the island in the usual haphazard way, blissfully oblivious of the fact that it had been designated a protected area requiring prior authorisation for a landing. We were greeted at the Kinloch jetty by the wildlife warden, who officiously informed us of our persona non grata status. I was in the process of puffing myself up into a state of self-righteous indignation at petty officialdom etc., when Applebee smoothly intervened. Of course, we were most terribly sorry. We had absolutely no idea. We'd come all the way from continental Europe to savour the rugged charms of Scotland in general, but of the much famed Isle of Rhum in particular. We know it's a lot to ask, but you couldn't possibly make an exception in our obviously very special case? I've never seen a man melt so utterly and completely. He'd been totally überrumpelt by a Commando-style charm offensive! He could not do enough for us. There could be no question of camping. April weather can be atrocious. There's a very nice bunk-house. You'll be nice and warm. There's a couple of lads there from Preston, but you're bound to get on. Crossing the threshold, Applebee sloughed his charm-boy skin and, in the blink of an eye, mutated into "Lancashire bloke". Without recourse to such cheap expedients as putting on the voice, but doubtless leaning on the accumulated experience of his youth in Ramsbottom (sic), Richard, by the slightest modification of intonation and vocabulary, by barely discernible shifts in body-language, intimated to the Preston lads a profound bond of shared experience and attitude. They bought it. Soon they were sharing their meal with us and plying us with the last of their cans of beer! In the best of spirits, we drew up ambitious plans for the morning. We'd bring food, a cooker and sleeping bags, do the traverse of Hallival and Askival, then head for the Bealach an Oir and on down to spend the night in the Dibidil bothy on the island's south-eastern shore.
Waking up, the weather didn't look too sure. A blustery wind, a lot of cloud, but the occasional burst of sun. Pretty standard April weather, we convinced ourselves. Anyway, the mountains are only 700-800 metres high. No reason not to set off at least. And so we were committed to what was to be the major epic of our climbing lives together. We packed our gear and got going. We passed behind Kinloch castle and, heading south-west, pushed on up the path towards the Bealach Bairc-mheall between Barkeval and Hallival. Then, from the bealach, south-east up the broad snowy back of Hallival and then on down again to the bottom of the narrow scrambling ridge up Askival. Starting up the rocks, we caught up with the Preston lads. Rather than work their way around the most prominent gendarmes, they had elected to go straight at them, as a result of which they had got themselves stranded at the top of a pinnacle. We threw them a rope and coached them in the basics of abseiling. No sooner had they had been coaxed down, than they decided to call it a day and opted to return to Kinloch via Coire nan Grunnd. With the weather clearly deteriorating, we were tempted to follow them on down, but it was still reasonably early in the day and we were feeling confident, possibly overconfident, as a result of our newly acquired status as mountain instructors. We tied onto the rope and continued up the ridge. Although the wind was getting up and it was coming on to snow quite heavily, the climbing was not difficult. This was technically the hardest part of our planned route. We reckoned that once over this tricky bit, the rest of the day would be relatively plain sailing. But we had underestimated the force of the wind.
We emerged onto the pointed summit of Askival into the teeth of a howling gale. Throughout the morning we had been on the lee side of the mountain, now, for the first time we were exposed to the full force of the elements. Visibility was no more than a few yards. Powder snow, hard as ice, was now being driven painfully into our faces. Conversation was reduced to shouting into each other's ears. Map reading became well-nigh impossible as the sheet flapped wildly. However, knowing the bealach to be directly to the west, we set out on a compass bearing. We went off down what we assumed to be the ridge, but instead of easing off as it should have done, the ground was getting steeper and steeper and increasingly tricky. It didn't make sense. We were now above a precipitous chasm. We didn't dare continue. I reached into my pocket for the compass. It wasn't there. I'd had it on the summit. Somehow it must have gone missing in all the roaring chaos. How could that be? But the seriousness of the situation did not lend itself to hysterical recrimination. We calculated that we had veered off too much to the south and were now groping our way down some subsiduary bluff which ended Lord knows where. I shouted into Richard's face that we should head back to the summit and find the proper ridge. That's what the text-books recommend. Shouting back, Richard made it plain that the last thing he was going to do was to head back up into that carnage. Further to the right the rocks seemed less steep. Perhaps we could find a way down there. The most important thing was to lose height as quickly as possible. And so we slipped and slithered and bum-slided our way down over rocks and scree and steep heather banks. Eventually we were very relieved to find ourselves below the cloud, able to see our route down Glen Dibidil. Now rain was slanting down in a steady downpour and before long we were soaked to the skin. We flogged down the trackless glen, seemingly forever, in hope and expectation of a nice dry bothy with a warm fire in the grate. But when we finally got there, the scene was ominously bleak. Just above the shore-line, a lonely, black stone but 'n' ben with the rain beating mercilessly on the rusty tin roof. The huge sea sending breakers crashing loudly onto the rocks, projecting great plumes of hissing spray high into the air. Inside was equally disconsolate. There was no store of firewood and not the slightest hope of gathering drift-wood under the prevailing conditions. No wooden sleeping platforms. We could lie on the cold stone floor. We got out a stove to brew up some tea to warm us up. All my matches were soaked and Richard's lighter refused absolutely to ignite. Our sleeping bags were sodden. It wasn't looking good. We took stock. To keep warm, we would have to keep moving. It was some six miles back to Kinloch by the coastal route. With the up and down, that would take us about two-and-a-half hours. We had about an hour-and-a-half's daylight left. Plus the gloaming, but not much of that in this foul weather. I had a torch, but no spare batteries. We had no time to waste deliberating. We set off.
Hardly two hundred yards further on, we met with our first major obstacle. Vastly swollen by the incessant rain, the Dibidil River was a mad surge of white water. We roped up and Richard belayed me. The water reached up to my waist, but, using my ice-axe for support, I managed across and took in the rope for Richard. Handicapped by his bad foot, half-way over he lost his footing. He was swept violently downstream. I hung on to the rope for dear life and with my frantic hauling and his desperate scrabbling, he finally made it to the bank. He was utterly drenched and slightly in shock. But there was no time for delicacy. I coiled up the rope and we just set straight off. We had to make as much ground as possible while it was still light. We settled into a rhythm and were able to make decent enough progress where the path was distinct, but inevitably there were parts where the true route was less than clear. And as it got darker it got less and less clear. Technically, although it would have been extremely tiresome, we could have followed a compass bearing cross-country, but that option was closed to us anyway. We crashed through another burn in violent spate by binding together like front-row forwards. Finally I had to get out my torch. All my powers of attention were focussed on not losing the track, however indistinct. At one point, Richard offered to take over as pathfinder. Ten steps into his shift, he tripped and fell. The torch dropped, spilling the batteries. Inwardly I cursed his clumsiness, but, forcing myself to keep cool, groped through the grass and heather till we had recovered all the parts and put the torch back together again. What a relief to have that little beam of saving light! By this time the wind had grown incredibly strong. Wild gusts were now literally blowing us off our feet. But we had to keep going. To spend the night in the open did not bear thinking on. We struggled on. By now, despite the effort of walking and the wearing of all spare clothes, soaked as we were, we were beginning to feel cold. Would this never end? And then, as we came up over the brow of a hill, we saw the lights of Kinloch. Not exactly Manhattan, but for us it was the Promised Land. Back at the bunkhouse, we got an enthusiastic welcome from the Preston boys, who had been worrying about us. We changed into dry clothes, set about drying out the sleeping bags in front of the fire, had a hot meal and finally snuggled up near the dying embers to be as warm as possible. Only now that I was safe and warm did I succumb to bouts of intense shivering. A curious phenomenon, I thought, but a typical reaction by all accounts. We had been through a chastening experience. My father, who was born and bred in the Scottish Highlands, had always laughed at all my accumulated gear. After all, when he was a boy, he had wandered all over the hills in nothing but his everyday clothes and a pair of "tackity" boots. Unconsciously, this attitude had caused me to adopt a slightly cavalier attitude to the matter of equipment. Since our Rhum adventure I have been a lot more conscientious.
Meanwhile, the intermittent spring sunshine was warming the western shores of the Ardnamurchan peninsula, as we watched the passing fishingboats and ferries going about their business. Sudden celestial beams of light would illuminate whole areas of the swelling ocean like some unsought-for epiphany. Viewed from the lighthouse, the little beach with its clear-white sands and azure waters beckoned to us. Irresistibly we were drawn down to it. We had the place entirely to ourselves. Running along the perfect strand, we rolled up our trouser-legs and paddled gaspingly in the freezing water. Laughing and splashing at the edge of the world, with the unfathomable ocean and the boundless sky around and above, were we not, for a magical moment, freed from the shackles of ordinary time? There are mountaineers who eschew Ardnamurchan for its lack of high hills. The loss is theirs. And what's more, that loss is the result of a misunderstanding of the nature of mountaineering, an activity which has far less to do with a tick list of achievements than it has to do with training our faculty for the perception of beauty, which is an aspect of truth.
Pressing on, we ran out of wide road around Strontian. Once you're on the single-track roads, you're in the real West of Scotland. European money has helped pay for an upgrade - not widened, but resurfaced and clearly marked down both sides by a clear white line. The fluent rhythm of the white lines invested the drive with a sort of abstract kinetic beauty. We swept on to Salen, following the coves and inlets of the northern shore of Loch Sunart, through a romantic tangle of ancient, stunted oak forest. Reaching the hotel, we checked into our beautifully appointed room, flopping luxuriously onto the big brass bed, enjoying spectacular views of the sea-loch, framed by the sash window. Being en famille, we ate in the restaurant, but had a drink in the bar as they took our order. The bar was perfect of its type - the Highland hotel back-bar snug. Sadly it is a threatened species and therefore worthy of careful anthropological investigation. Cosy, unaffected, atmospheric and tiny, intimacy is guaranteed by the fact that it is invariably ram-jam packed with punters demonstrating a single-minded devotion to getting tight. Sports-jacketed tourists, Aran-sweatered hikers, locals in blue dungarees and fold-down wellies stand elbow to elbow at the bar putting it away. Conversation rises to a cacophonous crescendo of enthusiastically held views. Shouted orders emerge indistinctly from a sea of sound. Fistfulls of pints are passed from hand to hand over the heads of the crowd. The bar staff work on with a concentrated rigour of attention. Nip after nip is pressed from the upside-down whisky bottles to disappear down the throats of the locals as they give (yet another) demonstration of what real drinking is about. No-one can drink like the Gaels. Even the girls will take on all comers and win hands down. Could it have something to do with the stance? Both arms and part of the upper body leaning heavily on the bar, the left leg supporting below, while the right leg is braced at an angle of 45 degrees, the wellie achieving an unrockable friction grip on the lino floor. The mellifluous yet strangely precise West Highland voices add their own aural colour to the proceedings. You might even hear Gaelic spoken - Ardnamurchan is a bulwark of Gaelic on the Scottish mainland. When I was young, Scotland was full of such places. My personal favourite was the back bar of the Loch Ericht Hotel at Dalwhinnie, sadly destroyed by fire. Still, a dignified end compared to most snugs, which were largely "modernised" to become like anywhere else - soulless lounges with fruit machines, canned music and ersatz beer.
The next day we set off on our pilgrimage to Ardnamurchan Point, the westernmost point on the Scottish mainland. The route continued along the lochside until we were confronted with the broad bulk of Ben Hiant, forcing us to cut inland and follow the road across the moor. The ever-widening sky and the growing clarity of the light betrayed the presence of the ocean even before we could see it. Then there it was in all its boundless immensity. From the lighthouse on the Point itself you look out to infinity. And at a level below (or is it above?) ordinary consciousness one is visited with an almost physical sense of one's personal insignificance before something so vast. Instinctively we draw back from the full implication of the experience by offering some feebly inadequate comment on the view or finding some footling practical distraction. As Eliot said: "Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot stand very much reality."
To the north lies the Isle of Skye and in between, sounding like some necromancer's conjuration, the "small isles", Rhum, Eigg and Muck. Back in the eighties I had gone with Richard Applebee on a climbing expedition to Rhum. We disembarked on the island in the usual haphazard way, blissfully oblivious of the fact that it had been designated a protected area requiring prior authorisation for a landing. We were greeted at the Kinloch jetty by the wildlife warden, who officiously informed us of our persona non grata status. I was in the process of puffing myself up into a state of self-righteous indignation at petty officialdom etc., when Applebee smoothly intervened. Of course, we were most terribly sorry. We had absolutely no idea. We'd come all the way from continental Europe to savour the rugged charms of Scotland in general, but of the much famed Isle of Rhum in particular. We know it's a lot to ask, but you couldn't possibly make an exception in our obviously very special case? I've never seen a man melt so utterly and completely. He'd been totally überrumpelt by a Commando-style charm offensive! He could not do enough for us. There could be no question of camping. April weather can be atrocious. There's a very nice bunk-house. You'll be nice and warm. There's a couple of lads there from Preston, but you're bound to get on. Crossing the threshold, Applebee sloughed his charm-boy skin and, in the blink of an eye, mutated into "Lancashire bloke". Without recourse to such cheap expedients as putting on the voice, but doubtless leaning on the accumulated experience of his youth in Ramsbottom (sic), Richard, by the slightest modification of intonation and vocabulary, by barely discernible shifts in body-language, intimated to the Preston lads a profound bond of shared experience and attitude. They bought it. Soon they were sharing their meal with us and plying us with the last of their cans of beer! In the best of spirits, we drew up ambitious plans for the morning. We'd bring food, a cooker and sleeping bags, do the traverse of Hallival and Askival, then head for the Bealach an Oir and on down to spend the night in the Dibidil bothy on the island's south-eastern shore.
Waking up, the weather didn't look too sure. A blustery wind, a lot of cloud, but the occasional burst of sun. Pretty standard April weather, we convinced ourselves. Anyway, the mountains are only 700-800 metres high. No reason not to set off at least. And so we were committed to what was to be the major epic of our climbing lives together. We packed our gear and got going. We passed behind Kinloch castle and, heading south-west, pushed on up the path towards the Bealach Bairc-mheall between Barkeval and Hallival. Then, from the bealach, south-east up the broad snowy back of Hallival and then on down again to the bottom of the narrow scrambling ridge up Askival. Starting up the rocks, we caught up with the Preston lads. Rather than work their way around the most prominent gendarmes, they had elected to go straight at them, as a result of which they had got themselves stranded at the top of a pinnacle. We threw them a rope and coached them in the basics of abseiling. No sooner had they had been coaxed down, than they decided to call it a day and opted to return to Kinloch via Coire nan Grunnd. With the weather clearly deteriorating, we were tempted to follow them on down, but it was still reasonably early in the day and we were feeling confident, possibly overconfident, as a result of our newly acquired status as mountain instructors. We tied onto the rope and continued up the ridge. Although the wind was getting up and it was coming on to snow quite heavily, the climbing was not difficult. This was technically the hardest part of our planned route. We reckoned that once over this tricky bit, the rest of the day would be relatively plain sailing. But we had underestimated the force of the wind.
We emerged onto the pointed summit of Askival into the teeth of a howling gale. Throughout the morning we had been on the lee side of the mountain, now, for the first time we were exposed to the full force of the elements. Visibility was no more than a few yards. Powder snow, hard as ice, was now being driven painfully into our faces. Conversation was reduced to shouting into each other's ears. Map reading became well-nigh impossible as the sheet flapped wildly. However, knowing the bealach to be directly to the west, we set out on a compass bearing. We went off down what we assumed to be the ridge, but instead of easing off as it should have done, the ground was getting steeper and steeper and increasingly tricky. It didn't make sense. We were now above a precipitous chasm. We didn't dare continue. I reached into my pocket for the compass. It wasn't there. I'd had it on the summit. Somehow it must have gone missing in all the roaring chaos. How could that be? But the seriousness of the situation did not lend itself to hysterical recrimination. We calculated that we had veered off too much to the south and were now groping our way down some subsiduary bluff which ended Lord knows where. I shouted into Richard's face that we should head back to the summit and find the proper ridge. That's what the text-books recommend. Shouting back, Richard made it plain that the last thing he was going to do was to head back up into that carnage. Further to the right the rocks seemed less steep. Perhaps we could find a way down there. The most important thing was to lose height as quickly as possible. And so we slipped and slithered and bum-slided our way down over rocks and scree and steep heather banks. Eventually we were very relieved to find ourselves below the cloud, able to see our route down Glen Dibidil. Now rain was slanting down in a steady downpour and before long we were soaked to the skin. We flogged down the trackless glen, seemingly forever, in hope and expectation of a nice dry bothy with a warm fire in the grate. But when we finally got there, the scene was ominously bleak. Just above the shore-line, a lonely, black stone but 'n' ben with the rain beating mercilessly on the rusty tin roof. The huge sea sending breakers crashing loudly onto the rocks, projecting great plumes of hissing spray high into the air. Inside was equally disconsolate. There was no store of firewood and not the slightest hope of gathering drift-wood under the prevailing conditions. No wooden sleeping platforms. We could lie on the cold stone floor. We got out a stove to brew up some tea to warm us up. All my matches were soaked and Richard's lighter refused absolutely to ignite. Our sleeping bags were sodden. It wasn't looking good. We took stock. To keep warm, we would have to keep moving. It was some six miles back to Kinloch by the coastal route. With the up and down, that would take us about two-and-a-half hours. We had about an hour-and-a-half's daylight left. Plus the gloaming, but not much of that in this foul weather. I had a torch, but no spare batteries. We had no time to waste deliberating. We set off.
Hardly two hundred yards further on, we met with our first major obstacle. Vastly swollen by the incessant rain, the Dibidil River was a mad surge of white water. We roped up and Richard belayed me. The water reached up to my waist, but, using my ice-axe for support, I managed across and took in the rope for Richard. Handicapped by his bad foot, half-way over he lost his footing. He was swept violently downstream. I hung on to the rope for dear life and with my frantic hauling and his desperate scrabbling, he finally made it to the bank. He was utterly drenched and slightly in shock. But there was no time for delicacy. I coiled up the rope and we just set straight off. We had to make as much ground as possible while it was still light. We settled into a rhythm and were able to make decent enough progress where the path was distinct, but inevitably there were parts where the true route was less than clear. And as it got darker it got less and less clear. Technically, although it would have been extremely tiresome, we could have followed a compass bearing cross-country, but that option was closed to us anyway. We crashed through another burn in violent spate by binding together like front-row forwards. Finally I had to get out my torch. All my powers of attention were focussed on not losing the track, however indistinct. At one point, Richard offered to take over as pathfinder. Ten steps into his shift, he tripped and fell. The torch dropped, spilling the batteries. Inwardly I cursed his clumsiness, but, forcing myself to keep cool, groped through the grass and heather till we had recovered all the parts and put the torch back together again. What a relief to have that little beam of saving light! By this time the wind had grown incredibly strong. Wild gusts were now literally blowing us off our feet. But we had to keep going. To spend the night in the open did not bear thinking on. We struggled on. By now, despite the effort of walking and the wearing of all spare clothes, soaked as we were, we were beginning to feel cold. Would this never end? And then, as we came up over the brow of a hill, we saw the lights of Kinloch. Not exactly Manhattan, but for us it was the Promised Land. Back at the bunkhouse, we got an enthusiastic welcome from the Preston boys, who had been worrying about us. We changed into dry clothes, set about drying out the sleeping bags in front of the fire, had a hot meal and finally snuggled up near the dying embers to be as warm as possible. Only now that I was safe and warm did I succumb to bouts of intense shivering. A curious phenomenon, I thought, but a typical reaction by all accounts. We had been through a chastening experience. My father, who was born and bred in the Scottish Highlands, had always laughed at all my accumulated gear. After all, when he was a boy, he had wandered all over the hills in nothing but his everyday clothes and a pair of "tackity" boots. Unconsciously, this attitude had caused me to adopt a slightly cavalier attitude to the matter of equipment. Since our Rhum adventure I have been a lot more conscientious.
Meanwhile, the intermittent spring sunshine was warming the western shores of the Ardnamurchan peninsula, as we watched the passing fishingboats and ferries going about their business. Sudden celestial beams of light would illuminate whole areas of the swelling ocean like some unsought-for epiphany. Viewed from the lighthouse, the little beach with its clear-white sands and azure waters beckoned to us. Irresistibly we were drawn down to it. We had the place entirely to ourselves. Running along the perfect strand, we rolled up our trouser-legs and paddled gaspingly in the freezing water. Laughing and splashing at the edge of the world, with the unfathomable ocean and the boundless sky around and above, were we not, for a magical moment, freed from the shackles of ordinary time? There are mountaineers who eschew Ardnamurchan for its lack of high hills. The loss is theirs. And what's more, that loss is the result of a misunderstanding of the nature of mountaineering, an activity which has far less to do with a tick list of achievements than it has to do with training our faculty for the perception of beauty, which is an aspect of truth.
posted by asbo at 2:08 PM
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