It’s dark and I’m miles from anywhere in one of the Highland’s remotest glens, Glencoul, and the bothy in nowhere to be seen. It’s early November and winter is knocking at the door. It’s been raining and sleeting for the past couple of hours as I make my way down the valley and head to where I hope the bothy will be. I’m pretty wet, I had to wade across the last river. As the cold water buffeted against my legs and I searched the bank with my head torch for a place I could climb out, I reflect that crossing a river such as this, alone, in so remote a place is a wonderful way of focussing the mind.
Walking down the glen, water sloshing in my boots, I realise I have two options. Number one: I find the bothy, light the fire, and spend a comfortable and cosy night, warming my feet and congratulating myself on how clever I’ve been. Number two: fail to find the little shelter and spend a long, cold, wet night coming to terms with my own stupidity. The second option does not appeal and finding the bothy will become the sole aim in life over the next hour or so walking. Other considerations, such as earning enough to pay the mortgage, keeping my cholesterol down, writing my novel, are so far from my mind as to have, at least temporarily, ceased to exist. Instantaneously my life has become incredibly simple, the things that seemed important only a few hours ago no longer have any relevance. Mountains can do that, that is one of their charms, they have the power to distil the essence out of life. I have only one aim now which, put at its simplest, is to survive.
Read more here
http://johndburns.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/the-boobs-of-glencoul/
