The first chapter of "The Munros: An asthmatic’s walking diary" by Stephen P. Smith
ISBN: 979-8-6508560-8-5 Available on Amazon
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The radio crackled into life, “Helicopter on its way for an uplift.” Andy Glover and I glanced at each other, our expressions both saying, ‘Well, we’ve done it now’. We looked back up the mountain, into the swirling mist. Nothing. Just the silence of the lower slopes of Carn Mor Dearg – my first Munro. Somewhere up there, maybe still around 4000 feet where the accident had happened, was the rest of our party, including Andy’s brother, Ady, with a deep cut to his head.
“Cheap coat, cheap rucksack, expensive boots and they don’t fit,” I muttered to myself.
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It was early morning, I had no idea of how the day was about to unfold and I was disillusioned. This was my first determined crack at a Munro and I was struggling. Struggling beyond what I’d ever imagined. The pull up the main Ben Nevis path was far harder than I’d envisaged, the pain in the front of my upper legs was fighting my body’s wish to immobilise itself. My calf muscles ached and the blood was thumping against my skull. And I was at the back. At the back again, just like when I was at school – the last time I did any regular, fitness contributing, exercise.
Through the thick mist, with the wind flapping my hood in my face, I could just make out the others. The rest of the party were fitter and all had at least one Munro under their belts – conquered on a holiday the previous year to Loch Mullardoch in Glen Cannich. I had failed due to my asthma. Today I was determined; whatever the pain, I wanted a Munro.
At the junction in the path, which can either take one on to Ben Nevis or round past Lochain Meall an t-Suidhe, the others were waiting for me. A fellow walker, descending, passed us.
“What’s it like up there?” I asked.
“Very windy, didn’t make it to the top.” And with that he was gone.
I studied the map. “We could go past this small loch and try and do Carn Mor Dearg instead.”
I really wanted a Munro today.
I half expected the others to pooh-pooh the idea but it got nods of agreement.
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The walk past the loch gave me some relief, lochs by nature being flat. A drop down into the glen preceded the real climb and my introduction to Munro bagging: no paths and just under 2000 feet of ascent in about a mile.
The climb was painful; my upper legs ached with each step and I needed to pause every few paces to catch my breath. At the age of twenty-four – such were the restrictions in my windpipe – my air intake was that of a seventy-year-old man. My toes and heels were sore and I was feeling damp. Every time I sought sustenance from food, I wrestled with my rucksack. Financial worries had turned me to the cheap end of the outdoor equipment market and I was now paying for it: a jacket made of thin material, not up to the ravages of the Scottish weather, and a rucksack best undone in laboratory conditions. But then there were the new boots, purchased two days ago and at the top end of the market. But I’d gone for one size too small and my feet were in a fair mood for rubbing in the mistake.
The others waited for me before the final pull to the minor top of Carn Beag Dearg, apart from David George, noted for never conforming, who was so far out in front we had to use whistles to rendezvous with him. Then we hit winter, late for May the 7th.
The wind whipped snow up into our faces. I felt miserable, cold and annoyed that I still couldn’t keep up. Taking up the rear I used the footprints left in the snow by the others to reassure myself I was on track. Over the summit of Carn Dearg Meadhonach we continued along the bleak snow-swept ridge where, in appalling visibility, we reached the Munro summit of Carn Mor Dearg. The celebration was no more than a miserable photograph in a blizzard.
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From the summit three alternative routes beckoned and there was duly a three-way split in opinion. I wanted to go back the way we came, Andy and Ady Glover wanted to go on to do Ben Nevis, the others wanted to take the route to the CIC hut in the glen below. We compromised on the option of the CIC hut; going on to do Ben Nevis, even with my dogged determination, didn’t look viable.
The drop from the top of Carn Mor Dearg towards the CIC hut was very steep and we had to negotiate rough and rocky terrain intermixed with snow and boulder fields. We found a good stretch of snow and had fun sliding on it. Ady took this a stage beyond caution and went for a deliberate bum slide. My memory is of him hurtling past me, in the half-light of the blowing snow, just to hear a loud crash a few seconds later. He landed standing upright between two large boulders, blood pouring from a head wound. At first it looked very bad but, upon reaching him, we were offered some degree of relief as it appeared all his limbs were okay and it was just his head to worry about, in more than one sense.
While Ady was tended to by the others, Andy and I took a straight line off the mountain to the CIC mountain rescue hut where a wind powered radio put us in touch with the police in Fort William. After they sent a patrol car out, to get a better signal, we managed to convince them it was a head and not a hand injury.
The fear of the RAF helicopter crew landing and wanting us to take them to the accident site was now daunting. Could we navigate our way back up? Was I strong enough to re-ascend? I felt drained, weak and exhausted. The rush off the mountains to make the call to the rescue services caught up with me. I slumped down with my back to the hut and gazed back up the mountain.
“Voices,” said Andy.
“Are you sure?” I replied, looking up.
“Yep, they’re coming off.”
A few minutes later the voices became dim figures emerging from the cloud line to the open glen. Ady was moving under his own steam with dried blood caked about his head. Andy and I were relieved we didn’t have to deal with the helicopter crew ourselves. After an exchange of stories we all sat and, after a tense wait, we made out the distant buzzing of a helicopter. A minute or so later it appeared as a distant pinprick through the mist. Gradually its shape grew bigger and did justice to the mechanical noise that preceded it.
The helicopter did a circuit over us and dropped a flare on the only suitable landing spot, just across a stream from the hut. On the second time round the pilot skilfully lowered his machine amongst the rocks while Ady was guided to it. With the rotor still spinning, poised for a quick getaway before the mist closed in, a crew member leapt out and examined Ady, gave us the thumbs up and helped him aboard. Seconds later the craft was airborne, disappearing back into the mist. We were left in silence, the drama over – returned to nature with a three-hour energy sapping walk ahead of us.
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The long walk back gave me plenty of time to think. I had set myself a personal challenge of doing the Munros before even setting one foot on them. But now – with Ady injured, the poor summit weather and experience of the sheer physical effort required to climb a Munro – I was reviewing my ambition.
Since graduating I’d tried a mixture of sports: squash, badminton and running. I really wanted to find a sport I could do on my own terms, but my asthma continued to frustrate. I had hoped doing the Munros might be it, but it felt as if asthma would, once again, take the upper hand. Now I was downcast.
Back in Glen Nevis the police met us next to our minibus. I sensed the sage-like glances of an older policeman, probably mirroring the other’s annoyance, of having to deal with a bunch of youngsters who had overstretched themselves. He viewed our kit; it looked passable to his eyes. Perhaps not my jacket, but my boots spared me criticism. If only he knew they were too small and both my big toe nails were poised to come away. I sensed he wanted to give us a ticking off but we were reasonably, if not perfectly, kitted out. And we knew exactly where we’d been when the accident had taken place despite Ady incorrectly telling them, “It happened somewhere on the Ben Nevis Arete.”
The policeman was quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t walk down the high street in those Doc Martens he had on.”
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