today i almost died/a thread about the scottish highlands

[PhillyB]

I haven't done anything dangerous and stupid for a while so I'm milking this one for what it's worth.

 

I've been in scotland the past four days. I flew into london with my wife and one-year-old, took an absurdly expensive transfer from Heathrow to Luton, and caught a flight to Glasgow, picked up the rental car, immediately switched it out for a larger one because squeezing mounds of baby stuff into a Fiat 500 just doesn't work, and drove to Glencoe, a stunning valley in the western highlands that's renowned as one of the country's most beautiful spots. I rented a holiday cabin in Ballachulish Village, perched over serene Loch Leven, and we've been here ever since, exploring and driving and having fun.

 

 

 

Then today I did something dumb. I set off early in the morning on a quest to find the Lost Valley, nestled between the imposing mountains of Gearr Aonach and Beinn Fhada, my goal from the outset to climb high enough to make a snowball. After a few hours of strenuous trekking I dropped down into the Lost Valley (probably lost because no one cared to remember it because of all the billions of freaking bloodsucking midges that live there) and ascended for another hour to a spot about 300m below the pass between the two peaks. It was covered in snow (spring runoff is still underway) and I didn't have poles or picks so I plotted a route that circumnavigated the snow via a massive column of rocks and narrow fissures that would lead me to the top.

Everything was loose and covered in slippery moss and at about a steadily-inclining angle upwards (up to about 75 degrees) for hundreds of feet. I slipped countless times, clinging white-knuckled to small plants and crumbling crags on a near-verticle wall, face planted carelessly in spiny rocks and spider holes to keep my center of gravity forward, a sure death below my bicycling feet. I knew death was imminent but somehow I felt safer climbing up than trying to pick my way down, so up I went, higher into the fog, hoping I'd reach the pass and meander back down on the other side.

 

 

 

^ i climbed up the middle stretch of that along the side of the ice flow to a niche in the very top left. it's much bigger than it looks

 

Then I got stuck in a fissure the width of my hind end, perched on a six-inch flat spot like a single stair on a staircase a mile high, and I saw the way ahead was blocked by a massive wall of stone that could not be navigated. I felt real fear of death for the first time since I did the same damn thing in Australia five years ago, and as the ground beneath me shifted, sending stones caroming down the crevice into free-falls to the ice flows far below, I whipped out the rest of my turkey sandwich and decided if I was going to die I was going to die full. The sandwich tasted thick and dry and sour - I think that was the fear. I saved the last bite for when I got to the bottom as extra motivation and a mental edge, and then I threw caution to the wind and shimmed, feet first, sliding on my ass like a six-year-old, down the crevice, hyper-concentrated, every move the paper-thin difference between dying on the rocks below and getting out alive, navigating vertical drops and collapsing outcroppings that crashed around me. And, finally, a nerve-racking, sweat-drenched hour later, I touched solid ground, covered in mud and stones and water and blood and ice chips, and I very cheerfully ate the rest of that sandwich.

In retrospect I wouldn't do it again, but the view from up there was one of the most magnificent sights I've ever laid eyes on, a scale so immense that the picture I snapped doesn't remotely do it justice.

 

 

 

 

Oh and I got that snowball.

 

 

[PhillyB]

a few random pics from scotland:

 

green hills everywhere:

 

 

 

cargo trolley over a river in the valley

 

 

 

…which i felt compelled to cross without the car

 

 

 

loch ness:

 

 

 

 

insane highland roads:

 

 

 

how my kid gets down

 

 

a walk through the forest:

 

[Jakob]

Once again, why does your life have to be so interesting?

[PhillyB]

it almost was a funeral dirge

[Porn Shop Clerk]

tourists

[Jackofalltrades]

My roots are in the Highlands.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using CarolinaHuddle mobile app

[Happy Panther]

Your wife hates you right now FYI.

 

Also awesome pics!

[Brooklyn Bully]

I haven't done anything dangerous and stupid for a while so I'm milking this one for what it's worth.

 

I've been in scotland the past four days. I flew into london with my wife and one-year-old, took an absurdly expensive transfer from Heathrow to Luton, and caught a flight to Glasgow, picked up the rental car, immediately switched it out for a larger one because squeezing mounds of baby stuff into a Fiat 500 just doesn't work, and drove to Glencoe, a stunning valley in the western highlands that's renowned as one of the country's most beautiful spots. I rented a holiday cabin in Ballachulish Village, perched over serene Loch Leven, and we've been here ever since, exploring and driving and having fun.

 

 

 

Then today I did something dumb. I set off early in the morning on a quest to find the Lost Valley, nestled between the imposing mountains of Gearr Aonach and Beinn Fhada, my goal from the outset to climb high enough to make a snowball. After a few hours of strenuous trekking I dropped down into the Lost Valley (probably lost because no one cared to remember it because of all the billions of freaking bloodsucking midges that live there) and ascended for another hour to a spot about 300m below the pass between the two peaks. It was covered in snow (spring runoff is still underway) and I didn't have poles or picks so I plotted a route that circumnavigated the snow via a massive column of rocks and narrow fissures that would lead me to the top.

Everything was loose and covered in slippery moss and at about a steadily-inclining angle upwards (up to about 75 degrees) for hundreds of feet. I slipped countless times, clinging white-knuckled to small plants and crumbling crags on a near-verticle wall, face planted carelessly in spiny rocks and spider holes to keep my center of gravity forward, a sure death below my bicycling feet. I knew death was imminent but somehow I felt safer climbing up than trying to pick my way down, so up I went, higher into the fog, hoping I'd reach the pass and meander back down on the other side.

 

 

 

^ i climbed up the middle stretch of that along the side of the ice flow to a niche in the very top left. it's much bigger than it looks

 

Then I got stuck in a fissure the width of my hind end, perched on a six-inch flat spot like a single stair on a staircase a mile high, and I saw the way ahead was blocked by a massive wall of stone that could not be navigated. I felt real fear of death for the first time since I did the same damn thing in Australia five years ago, and as the ground beneath me shifted, sending stones caroming down the crevice into free-falls to the ice flows far below, I whipped out the rest of my turkey sandwich and decided if I was going to die I was going to die full. The sandwich tasted thick and dry and sour - I think that was the fear. I saved the last bite for when I got to the bottom as extra motivation and a mental edge, and then I threw caution to the wind and shimmed, feet first, sliding on my ass like a six-year-old, down the crevice, hyper-concentrated, every move the paper-thin difference between dying on the rocks below and getting out alive, navigating vertical drops and collapsing outcroppings that crashed around me. And, finally, a nerve-racking, sweat-drenched hour later, I touched solid ground, covered in mud and stones and water and blood and ice chips, and I very cheerfully ate the rest of that sandwich.

In retrospect I wouldn't do it again, but the view from up there was one of the most magnificent sights I've ever laid eyes on, a scale so immense that the picture I snapped doesn't remotely do it justice.

 

 

 

 

Oh and I got that snowball.

 

 

 

You took a one-year-old on an international flight?

[SuperLego5]

I went swimming in Loch Ness once. Nearly died from an infection.

[Jangler]

was expecting a fight with an immortal, not a turkey sandwich

[jasonluckydog]

1st you should audition for the Amazing Race...

Awesome story and pictures you're doing everything that most of us here wanted to do when we got out of college but for one reason or another it didn't happen.

[cgarsmoker]

The closest I've ever been to Scotland was the bottom of a Johnnie Walker Black bottle. I'd love to go, looks awesome.

[TheRumGone]

bad fuging ass

 

and also don't die you got a wife and a child to support.

 

and happy fathers day you crazy fug

 

 

[Brooklyn Bully]

My last name is Scottish. My pops went to Scotland a few years ago and found a hill with our last name. I'm from a hill or something, lol.