This is a story about how I didn’t bag my first Munro.
An easy hike on a Munro, said my husband, Richard. We can drive most of the way up, he said. I pictured a parking lot near the summit and a stroll along the ridge with lovely views.
Rich, our son Ozzie, and I set off the next morning for the Glenshee Ski Centre in the Cairngorms to meet up with some teachers from the school where Rich works. The car park was at an elevation of 650 metres but the mountains still seemed huge. Maybe the easy Munro was further down the road.
While we waited, the rain started to pour down. Maybe we should come back another day, I suggested. Or never.
It’ll stop soon, Rich assured me.
One of the teachers arrived, cheerful, despite the rain. She pointed to the top of a steep ski slope.
“That’s an easy walk. You go up to that chairlift there, and then over to that chairlift and back down.”
I chuckled. Easy, right. Rich’s colleague had a lovely sense of humour.
Hold on, Rich was nodding. She wasn’t joking. My heart dropped into my stomach. Good grief, if that’s an easy walk, what on earth is an easy Munro?
Still, there were kids with us, so how bad could it be?
As the teachers and their families began to arrive, I started to worry. They were all tanned and fit and outdoorsy looking. This lot had less body fat between them than I have in my love handles.
We drove down the road to another car park. Mother plucker, the mountain peaks here looked bigger, not smaller. Teachers started pulling on brightly coloured wet weather gear and snapping open walking sticks while I stood there, huddled in my grey trench coat. I felt like a tourist who’d bumbled into an advertising shoot for North Face.
“We’re going up there,” said Rich’s colleague, pointing a dark cloud clinging possessively to the tallest peak in the distance.
This time I didn’t laugh.
“And then we’ll walk along that ridge and…” Her words melted away as blind panic set in. I fumbled through my backpack and dug out my inhaler. Bollocks, it expired in 2019. Should be fine though, right?
The teachers headed off all gung ho, so I slid into the back of the line where I wouldn’t hold anyone up. The hike started out nice and flat. I chatted with the organiser and confessed some of my fears. She pulled out a map in a neat waterproof bag and showed me an alternate route, promising to warn me when we got there. We crossed a small stream and I congratulated myself for not falling in. Then the trail started going up. Sharply. I glanced ahead. Oscar was halfway up the first hill and the others were springing up the path like giddy mountain goats.
I stared at the ground. Just concentrate on yourself Chris, one step, then another, then another. Not so bad. I enjoyed about 15 seconds of the climb before the shortness of breath kicked in. Inhaler at the ready, I took few more steps. My breaths were fast and loud in my ears. I shook the inhaler. The rain pelted me in an accelerating beat, like that scene in Indiana Jones were the dude rips out the poor guys heart. Surely everyone could hear me gasping for breath. Two quick puffs of my inhaler and onward. Okay, I was making ok time. I looked up. Rich and his colleague were way ahead, waiting for me. Crap.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. Speaking would use up far too much oxygen.
We trudged on. Well, I trudged, the others merrily skipped, strolled, sprinted or otherwise frolicked ahead. Rich and his colleague kindly slowed down to walk with me as they chatted. What the actual F. I could hardly breathe and they were merrily talking away.
I knew it then. I would never make it.
Eventually, we stopped at the crossroads. I was given the option to take an old military road that followed an easier route or carry on with the group. An internal struggle took place while I vainly tried to multitask breathing and thinking. I could carry on, buckle down, and find the inner strength to bag a Munro. Or I could admit failure.
I’m not ashamed to say, I chose failure. Okay, I’m maybe slightly ashamed.
It took me 43 years to figure this out, and I’m still not that great at it, but there is a sweet freedom to not doing something.
My initial failure wasn’t pretty. The “easy” road was still pretty steep. And I desperately wanted to get away from the group so I could break down in tears. Bloody Scottish landscapes with no bloody trees. I struggled up the slope for a good ten minutes while they could still see me. Were they telling themselves they knew I wouldn’t make it? Were they saying it’s such a shame I let myself get into this state of globular ill-health. Or worse, were they pitying me?
As soon as they disappeared behind the slope I let go of my tenuous self-control, crying and wheezing up the road. I was full of self-loathing and directionless anger. The slope kept getting steeper and steeper, then it disappeared and I was climbing through calf-high wet grass, my feet squelching in wet shoes, tears mingling with cool rain. Not only might I be a failure, but I could be lost in the highlands for twenty years, only to be found again as an object of curiosity having finally lost the weight on a diet of heather and tubers only to have lost my marbles, speaking in an imaginary language to animals while only hissing at humans.
This is where my rational brain interjected. This was a Scottish hill, not a tree in sight. Once I got to the top, I would be able to see for 100 miles in any direction. Even here, I could see the road below me on the left. Alas, in twenty years I would still be fat and (relatively) sane.
Partway up, I found a faint trail that met up with a bigger trail and I was back on track. My anger deflated. I couldn’t blame them for being fit and healthy and wanting to exercise their abilities. In fact, they seemed quite lovely and were probably just concerned in a reasonable kind of way. All that disgust came from me. But why? So, I can’t climb a mountain. I can write a novel. I can illustrate an Aztec god. I can accurately cut 200 gram pieces of cheese for 8 hours in a row.
The rain stopped, the sun came out, I looked up and I was alone on top of the world. The steep path was behind me and the road ahead followed the ridge in gentle rises. My shoulders straightened and my strides lengthened. A gust of wind blew my coat behind me and I felt like the Highlander. Did the Highlander have a trench coat? And long hair and a sword and lighting powers or something? Anyway, I felt strong as hell.
I strode that ridge like I was riding the wind. To my left, tiny toy cars crept along a narrow ribbon of road, distant and inconsequential. To my right, an eagle flew below me. I was alone in my empire of heather and grass, queen of nothing, ruled by nothing.
Then I tripped over a stone and giggled at my little fantasy. Could I be having fun? I stopped and took pictures of heather and feathers and the rain-shrouded peaks around me while I bathed in sunlight. I had genial conversations with the rain, birds of prey and myself. (This is normal for me. Most of the dialogue and plot of my novels were spoken aloud before they were ever written down. Crazy? Possibly. Effective? Absolutely.)
This is what I said.
“I accept there are things I’m not good at.
I accept there are things I cannot do.
I accept there are good things about me.
I accept the good and the bad about myself.
I accept myself the way I am.”
This became my mantra.
“I accept myself the way I am.”
This phrase rang in my head for my entire walk on the top of the hill. When I slipped on the gravel on the way down and fell, I lay down and laughed. When I reached the car, two hours later, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I closed my eyes and dozed in the sunshine while I waited for the others to return, and I was glad to be where I was.
When they came back, six hours after they left, I was honestly happy to see them and hear about their epic adventure, conquering not just one, but two Munros.
And I lived happily ever after.
Hah.
I wish.
I’m happy for Richard and Ozzie, and proud their accomplishment, but I be lying if I said I didn’t I feel a twinge of hurt when I hear what about all the wonderful stories and achievements that they had on their journey, moments I couldn’t be a part of, that I wasn’t good enough to be a part of.
Or that I had a smidge of satisfaction that I had to put Rich’s socks on for him because he was broken from the hike.
But when I think back to that time, striding the hilltop with my coat billowing behind me like a cape, the wind playing with my hair, companion to eagles, I remember that freedom.
The freedom of failure.
British Vocabulary for my Canadian friends and people who were not yet born in the 80s
Bloody - Expletive. A slightly milder version of F-ing.
Bollocks - Testicles. Also nonsense; rubbish.
Car park - Parking lot.
Highlander - An immortal Scottish swordsman from the 15th century who was the main character in a 1986 sci-fi fantasy movie.
Munro - A Munro is a mountain in Scotland that rises more than 3000 feet. It’s a badge of honour to “bag” a Munro.
Public Service Announcement.
When you’re on a hike, one person is always going to be the slowest. Let’s call them Pat. So you stop and wait for Pat and as soon as Pat catches up to you you pat yourself on the back for being a good friend or husband or wife or whatever and you bounce away, having had a nice little rest, blissfully unaware that Pat, the one you waited for, well, they haven’t had a rest. They were slogging up the hill while you were resting, and have continued to slog up the hill - without a rest - in a feeble attempt to catch up. And that weird feeling on the back of your neck? Those are the mental daggers that Pat is shooting at you from far, far behind.
If you feel like this might be you, the next time you find yourself in this situation, here are some easy steps to take.
1. Give Pat a chance to rest too.
That’s it. Easy, right? Remember this piece of advice, and you are sure to have an improved relationship/friendship. You’re welcome.