It’s hard to write about the outdoors and climbing when you haven’t been outdoors for seven weeks, so Emily Woodhouse at Travelling Lines has been keeping people sane with weekly writing prompts. I thought I’d give one a go – thanks Emily!
It had never really occurred to us that it was December when we agreed to meet at 3pm. It hadn’t occurred that the snow would be melting either, nor to check the weather forecast before leaving, nor to charge our head torches. After such a drought of occurring thoughts it was only natural that Dom and I were in for a bit of a shit show up on Lockerbrook.
Thanks to our lack of forethought, we were psyched to be out. A week earlier we’d done perfect loop from Fairholmes: slogging up Lockerbrook Heights, bouncing along the ridge through knee-high snow, turning right at Alport Castles to drop back to the road where the falling flakes through the pines created a positively alpine scene. Christmas was coming, life was good and we were awesome. The following weekend we headed back to get us some more of that feeling.
Unfortunately, as well as being uncharacteristically unaware of the weather, we were also uncharacteristically underdressed. Granted, Dom climbed out of his car in an enormous pair fleecy trousers – a homemade multicoloured marvel – and I in a Christmas jumper, but we soon shed these layers down to our running leggings and techy base-layer tops before springing down the road and up into the woods.
It was steep from the get-go but we felt good. In fact everything felt good for a while and we chatted through cold, snatched breaths as we wound our way up. When the trees spat us out we turned left, then right, and climbed over the huge stile just as before, ready to start along the ridge.
Things didn’t look as friendly as we’d left them. Last weekend’s crisp, crackling snow was beginning to melt, forming icy pools over the path. Disgruntled by our rude interruption, it invaded our shoes, saturated our socks and licked our bare ankles – not quite the kind of feeling we’d had in mind.
Things got a bit worse shortly after dusk. The wind whipped up the dale and buffeted us with cold, wet air until we cowered and deliberated behind dry stone walls like the true heroes we are. Our techy clothes let in wind and the rain (just as they were designed to), my head torch died, and somewhere along the way Dom ended up in one of those icy pools I mentioned earlier. We hadn’t run more than a few miles, but we suddenly felt very cold and very out of our depth.
I’ve been in few circumstances where I’ve had to make the call: push on or retreat. Although we weren’t in any grave danger, it was hard not to feel it as we cut across the bog towards the safety of the road with one light between us. Once there our anxiety subsided into shame: at our underestimation of our local hills; at our lack of preparation; at the fact that we worked at an outdoor company, had way more gear than we needed for this kind of thing, but were still completely unprepared.
When you think of things going wrong you assume it would be somewhere unfamiliar and wild: maybe on a self-supported bikepacking trip across Alaska or a first ascent of a Himalayan peak. The odds of having an epic in your back garden feel pretty low.
But in my experience the shit usually hits the fan when I’m half an hour from my house doing something I’ve done a hundred times before. The familiarity makes me complacent, makes me overconfident, and that makes things go wrong.
Still, at least we got a story out of it.
Stay safe!
– Hati
PS. you can sign up to Emily’s adventure writing prompts here (I definitely recommend!)
Hati Whiteley 