munro misadventure

a munro is a scottish mountain with a height of over 3000 ft. a very anal person, sir hugh munro, first compiled a catalogue of all these hills in 1891. there are 283 munros in scotland. 'munro-baggers' refers to people who try to climb all of them so they can tick them off on their list. though the objects of their foibles vary, people are the same everywhere! since i like ticking things off on lists and i like climbing i decided i must climb at least one munro since i was in scotland. as it turned out....

....this was a minor misadventure. i set out to climb the munro stob coire raineach. i had no map or compass, went off trail and reached a ridge which had a line of little peaks. walking up and down the ridge i reached the base of the highest of these peaks imagining it was the munro when the mist came in and i couldn't see 5 metres in front of my nose. much panic, prompt about turn and a desperate hunt for a banana peel which marked the place where i had reached the ridge ensued. banana peel found i slid all the way down on my backside. the jeans i was wearing were abandoned at the youth hostel.

later consultations with experienced munro climber, stuart mackenzie (see earlier post), revealed that i had reached the ridge of beinn fhada and though i had reached a point higher than stob coire raineach i still hadn't made it to the top of the munro on that ridge... stob coire sgreamaich. so inspite of my best efforts my munro count remains 0. the list remains unticked.