(As context for this post, I was still at this point in my life very heavy and extremely non-athletic. Little did I know that a love of hiking up mountains would be borne from this day!)<\/p>\n
NEVER AGAIN<\/u><\/em>!!! If I see another mountain in this lifetime, it\u2019ll be too soon! At least I attempted the Ben, unfortunately, I was forced down because of weather. I was at least <\/em>three quarters\u00a0of the way up, darn it! I must admit that it\u2019s my pride\u2014that is my false pride\u2014that got me so far up. I left in rainy, sticky weather only to encounter rainy, mucky, freezing weather. I was dressed properly, but still uncomfortable.<\/p>\n The \u2018path\u2019 up was unbelievable<\/em>, most of it was just crumbly rock. My boots have an amazing<\/em> gripping power. In a way, I\u2019m glad clouds obscured the summit and hid the valley. I would have fainted if I\u2019d seen either A) how far I\u2019d come and\/or B) how far I still had to go! When I finally<\/em> came to my senses and headed down, I discovered that going up was physically exhausting but going down was emotionally terrifying! And painful. I never thought I\u2019d get off that mountain!<\/p>\n Someone estimated that I\u2019d make the climb in 5 \u00bd hours. I turned back with only a half hour to go. It was a difficult decision to make but I\u2019d decided many things\u00a0: 1) I wasn\u2019t about to become another Ben statistic (I lost track of the number of times gusting winds came too close to blowing me off. And I\u2019m still trying to forget the gushing stream I had to cross. One mistake and I would have been swept straight down three thousand feet.); 2) no challenge is worth dying for; 3) I\u2019d already proven to myself that I could push myself beyond the limits of my endurance (physical, yes, but especially emotional. You have no idea how scared<\/em> I was climbing that thing).<\/p>\n I\u2019m proud of what I accomplished, but disappointed that I didn\u2019t make to the very summit.\u00a0\u00a0 It was my only chance; there\u2019s no way<\/em> I\u2019m ever<\/em> doing back up there\u00a0!<\/p>\n The first couple of hundred\u00a0feet coming down were terrible. As with going up, I couldn\u2019t see more than fivein front of me. But about halfway down, the clouds began to clear and the sun peeked out. The glen became beautiful. And I saw just how much I\u2019d climbed; despite my disappointment, I felt a certain amount of \u2018good\u2019 pride.<\/p>\n The weather cleared up very quickly as I came down; a beautiful loch was revealed to me. The most frightening part of the whole ordeal (I won\u2019t lie, it was an ordeal!) was crossing this torrent of water. The first\u00a0time (going up), a man helped me across, but my glasses were so steamy, I couldn\u2019t see where I was going! Arriving safely on the other bank, I promptly tripped\u2014twice. I wasn\u2019t hurt but boy was I embarrassed<\/em>! The man wouldn\u2019t keep his eyes off me for several hundred\u00a0feet! Besides that, there were a few scary slipping incidents but nothing major.<\/p>\n Igot off the Ben unbruised (nope, two lovely shiners the next morning, one on each knee!), alive, and with a lot of respect for it. I didn\u2019t take this trip lightly, but I could never have foreseen how it would turn out, me against the elements. I can\u2019t believe the people who literally sprinted up and down in under four hours!<\/p>\n The Ben is something to try once in a lifetime, and just trying it means something. But, as I said: NEVER AGAIN!!!<\/p>\n (Hoping to do so in 2017, LOL)<\/p>\n 7:02 pm<\/p>\n The bunkhouse is almost full tonight! I must admit that I got the heebee jeebees when a van full of men came carousing in. Turns out they were loud because they weren\u2019t used to staying in a place like this. They are actually very funny! (funny, that is, until they wouldn\u2019t shut up and were yelling from midnight to 2AM!) Then, a guy I met through Haggis waltzed in, followed by at least two women and one more guy.<\/p>\n I had to do all<\/em> my laundry tonight. I hope that most of it will be dry tomorrow, especially my big sweater. I\u2019ll never<\/em> take a washer and dryer for granted again! It\u2019s tough<\/em> wringing out those tee-shirts and pants, but a woolen sweater…!<\/p>\n I called \u2018home\u2019 again and left a message. It\u2019s for \u2018their\u2019 sake, not mine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (As context for this post, I was still at this point in my life very heavy and extremely non-athletic. Little did I know that a love of hiking up mountains would be borne from this day!) NEVER AGAIN!!! If I see another mountain in this lifetime, it\u2019ll be too soon! At least I attempted the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[680,18,3,56],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-10273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glen-nevis","category-scotland","category-travel","category-uk","tag-accommodation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}