I said I would update this blog, sorry it took me a little longer than I though it would. Also, sorry about all the detail, if you know me, you know I don’t particularly like detail, so if this wasn’t my blog, I probably wouldn’t actually read all of it. I’ll tell you, the good part is at the bottom, but the rest is fun too. :-)
On Sunday we decided to do a little hill walking, a group had gone the day before and hiked for about 8 hours, but thankfully for me, we were going to be able to go for that long because we had to catch the bus at 5. I didn’t really know how I would handle this “hillwalking.” I always think hiking through hills and mountains seems like a great idea, until I’m actually doing it. The last time I had done any really hill walking was in Ecuador and with the way my memory works, things usually seem easier and more appealing in my memory than at the actual time they’re happening. The morning was cold and wet, I was a little nervous because I only had my wet gross tennis shoes with me. Thankfully one of the very nice mountaineering girls let me borrow her hiking boots, which completely saved the day!
We started out on our trek to the hills. We got to a little sign that said ‘foot path’ and thought, well this must be the path that we take. It took us through a sheep pasture, and when one of the guys jumped over the fence we heard a completely terrifying yell from a lady, apparently the owner of this pasture. So, we quickly ran down out of the pasture and found a different path. The hike began with what seemed like miles of stone steps going up the hill. This was the point where I remembered that I didn’t really actually like hiking. Being passed by 70 year old ladies is quite a humbling experience. But we all made it to the top, where a beautiful, slightly mysterious lake greeted us. It was really cold and windy, but we kind of all wanted to jump in and go for a swim…then we though….hypothermia, and reconsidered. After resting for a few minutes we were off to find the “scramble.” Just like everything else I do here, haha, I didn’t know what a scramble was, but I was excited. The only problem was, thick fog was setting in, and we couldn’t even see the rest of the hill. After some searching we found the rocky path to the scramble. Apparently everyone else in the Lake District also thought it would be a good idea to come climb the scramble that day and there was a line of people going up the narrow steep route. I was ready for this though, this was more my kind of thing than the hillwalking, well at least I thought. I like the climbing, but I also like the security of a rope and harness and knowing that I’m not going to fall off the side of a steep, rocky cliff.
Everything was going fine, everyone was moving slowly because there were so many people and the rocks were a little bit slippery. For a instant I had a horrible thought, “If one person falls backwards, they’ll fall on the next person, and there’ll be a domino effect all the way down this scramble…awesome…” But once you’re half way up, there’s no turning back, so I just stopped thinking. Also, it wasn’t as scary as it could have been, because we were really up in the clouds and couldn’t see the ground from where we were. We got to one tricky bit where everyone was going one-by-one, this was obviously what was slowing everyone down. There was a group of older hillwalkers right in front of us, who were going up the tricky bit. You can see it in the picture, you can barely see a man in the fog climbing up the rock. When I say older, I mean probably mid to late 70’s, which is quite impressive, but maybe not completely safe. All of a sudden we heard a man screaming and see him falling backwards. Probably one of the scariest few seconds I’ve experienced. There was a man behind him going up that tricky little bit, and thankfully somehow he caught the old man in front of him. Everything was silent for a second, and then, another man yelled, “Bloody hell, he’s cracked his head wide open!”(pardon my French) This is not what you want to hear on the side of a mountain! I didn’t know what to do, we couldn’t actually see the man. Turns out there was a doctor just behind us, so he climbed up to take a look, his head wasn’t actually cracked wide open, head injuries just bleed a lot! And, thankfully everyone had cell phone reception, so they were able to call mountain rescue. He was bleeding pretty bad and was obviously very shaken up, but it looked like he was going to be ok! Now, we all had to continue up the scramble, going over the bit where he had just fallen.....we all made it up safe. A few hours later on in the day when we finished our walk and were on the way to the pub, we ran into an ambulance. The driver said that they were still working on getting the man down the hill really slowly, but they thought he was going to be ok!
On Sunday we decided to do a little hill walking, a group had gone the day before and hiked for about 8 hours, but thankfully for me, we were going to be able to go for that long because we had to catch the bus at 5. I didn’t really know how I would handle this “hillwalking.” I always think hiking through hills and mountains seems like a great idea, until I’m actually doing it. The last time I had done any really hill walking was in Ecuador and with the way my memory works, things usually seem easier and more appealing in my memory than at the actual time they’re happening. The morning was cold and wet, I was a little nervous because I only had my wet gross tennis shoes with me. Thankfully one of the very nice mountaineering girls let me borrow her hiking boots, which completely saved the day!
We started out on our trek to the hills. We got to a little sign that said ‘foot path’ and thought, well this must be the path that we take. It took us through a sheep pasture, and when one of the guys jumped over the fence we heard a completely terrifying yell from a lady, apparently the owner of this pasture. So, we quickly ran down out of the pasture and found a different path. The hike began with what seemed like miles of stone steps going up the hill. This was the point where I remembered that I didn’t really actually like hiking. Being passed by 70 year old ladies is quite a humbling experience. But we all made it to the top, where a beautiful, slightly mysterious lake greeted us. It was really cold and windy, but we kind of all wanted to jump in and go for a swim…then we though….hypothermia, and reconsidered. After resting for a few minutes we were off to find the “scramble.” Just like everything else I do here, haha, I didn’t know what a scramble was, but I was excited. The only problem was, thick fog was setting in, and we couldn’t even see the rest of the hill. After some searching we found the rocky path to the scramble. Apparently everyone else in the Lake District also thought it would be a good idea to come climb the scramble that day and there was a line of people going up the narrow steep route. I was ready for this though, this was more my kind of thing than the hillwalking, well at least I thought. I like the climbing, but I also like the security of a rope and harness and knowing that I’m not going to fall off the side of a steep, rocky cliff.
Everything was going fine, everyone was moving slowly because there were so many people and the rocks were a little bit slippery. For a instant I had a horrible thought, “If one person falls backwards, they’ll fall on the next person, and there’ll be a domino effect all the way down this scramble…awesome…” But once you’re half way up, there’s no turning back, so I just stopped thinking. Also, it wasn’t as scary as it could have been, because we were really up in the clouds and couldn’t see the ground from where we were. We got to one tricky bit where everyone was going one-by-one, this was obviously what was slowing everyone down. There was a group of older hillwalkers right in front of us, who were going up the tricky bit. You can see it in the picture, you can barely see a man in the fog climbing up the rock. When I say older, I mean probably mid to late 70’s, which is quite impressive, but maybe not completely safe. All of a sudden we heard a man screaming and see him falling backwards. Probably one of the scariest few seconds I’ve experienced. There was a man behind him going up that tricky little bit, and thankfully somehow he caught the old man in front of him. Everything was silent for a second, and then, another man yelled, “Bloody hell, he’s cracked his head wide open!”(pardon my French) This is not what you want to hear on the side of a mountain! I didn’t know what to do, we couldn’t actually see the man. Turns out there was a doctor just behind us, so he climbed up to take a look, his head wasn’t actually cracked wide open, head injuries just bleed a lot! And, thankfully everyone had cell phone reception, so they were able to call mountain rescue. He was bleeding pretty bad and was obviously very shaken up, but it looked like he was going to be ok! Now, we all had to continue up the scramble, going over the bit where he had just fallen.....we all made it up safe. A few hours later on in the day when we finished our walk and were on the way to the pub, we ran into an ambulance. The driver said that they were still working on getting the man down the hill really slowly, but they thought he was going to be ok!
1 comment:
This little adventure sounds like it was terrifying but a lot of fun. The parts about fleeing the sheep pasture and wanting to swim, but being afraid of hyperthermia are especially funny. I'm glad the random old man didn't actually fall off of the mountain. Hope your essays are going well!
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