Nathan's First Munro!
Ever since I showed my son, Nathan, the footage from Buachaille Etive Mor, he’s been bugging me constantly to go up a Munro, as he wanted to be above the clouds! We’d given Ben A’an a shot, and he was still dead keen, pestering me as to when we could go up a proper Munro. I wasn’t sure he’d manage a big day like our last adventure, but I was sure he’d manage a beginner Munro. As such I thought it best to start with the Munro closest to home, Ben Chonzie!
Getting it Right First Time.
As a child growing up I wasn’t shy about the outdoors. Born before the age of the internet, my childhood consisted of playing in abandoned mine shafts near old shale bings and attending Boys Brigade; Similar to the Scouts, but with a bigger focus on Christian ethics, the Boys Brigade taught me most of what I know about the outdoors. I have fond memories of learning how to use a map and compass with friends, then putting these skills to practice out on a proper camp. I’ve not so fond memories of sleeping under canvas for 7 days on the banks of Loch an Eilein, where I shared a tent with some older lads, intent on some action with the young impressionable Danish exchange girls.
So, with all of this in mind, and the fact that Nathan gave up the Boys Brigade in favour of Football before they started map reading, I felt it was my duty to teach him some proper map reading skills. The current generation are far too attached to their digital devices, and although this can be a problem, I decided to use it to my advantage and bombard him with digital maps and videos. We ended up watching quite a few YouTube videos together, and to be honest, the only thing that concerned me about our proposed journey was the weather. Although the route looked fairly straight forward, the forecast showed cloud from about 350m and up. The chances for a cloud free summit for Nathan’s first Munro were highly doubtful!
Starting in the Dark.
I’m trying my best to raise my son without any of the cotton wool and bubble wrap nonsense that seems to plague the youth of today. So I didn’t want him thinking that going up a Munro would be a walk in the park. Even although this is a beginner Munro, I wanted to make it as challenging as possible for Nathan, and what better way to challenge a teenager, than to make them get up at half 4 in the morning!
After an early rise, we made a change to Matt and I’s breakfast tradition of Greggs, and stopped off at Stirling McDonalds for under cooked and over priced bacon rolls. I definitely need to make it a habit of eating something substantial before setting off on a hike, as I’m just running on empty without it and generally feel like rubbish all day.
We arrived at the very small car park near the Invergeldie lodge just after 6am in total darkness. You forget how much light pollution there is in the Central belt, and it’s very rare to be in location that is dark enough to the point of needing a torch! Myself and Matt regularly do a 5 mile dog walk across our local peat moss in total darkness without the need for torches, but this was dark dark, and guess what I hadn’t packed? Yup, a torch!
Keeping Roman on a very tight lead, as I could hear the bleating of sheep somewhere in the darkness ahead, we set off into the mist towards Invergeldie lodge. The first 2km were pretty flat, and followed along either side of the Invergeldie burn, before we turned right at the dam and started the ascent into the mist. With visibility down to about 10m, it was quite disconcerting at times to hear rutting stags either side of you, and not be able to see them!
Fitter than me!
It hadn’t gotten a little lighter, and although there was no rain, we were literally inside a cloud getting soaked. I was wearing my stolen Tree Deep Camo jacket which wasn’t too bad, but my bag was taking a pounding, and Nathan’s lightweight jacket and trousers now weighed about twice as much as they did at the start of the hike.
As you can probably tell from the video, I still wasn’t in the best shape, and didn’t want to stop or slow down before Nathan asked to. Stupid pride and dad mode, but being a keen footballer I knew he was probably fitter than me at this point. So it wasn’t till we came to the fork that takes you left off the land rover path and up a steeper path towards the summit plateau, that we did actually stop for a breather.
This section involved crossing a small burn and was arguably the steepest section of the hike. After explaining to Nathan about the different types of rocks and telling him to subscribe to Scottish Geologist, we met up with the main plateau path thanks to some kindly positioned cairns. Throughout the hike I’d let Nathan lead the way. I had the route memorised in the back of my head, and had the Walk Highlands app on my phone, but I wanted him to try and navigate using the information I’d given him and he’d researched himself.
Thank Goodness for Carins!
Although visibility was pretty poor, following the Carins made it pretty straight forward. Nathan had made a mental note of when to turn right for the final push to the summit, but the mist and fog was making it difficult, with nothing in sight to take a bearing from. I made a point of going further than we should of, before stopping him and asking him why we were going downhill, and he quickly corrected himself to say we should’ve turned right.
To the Summit!
Having looked at a few videos online, I knew the final push to the summit wasn’t going to be hard in terms of height gained, but the rain and wind that had started made it considerably more difficult.
With Roman, soaked to the bone and anxious to get to the end, he pulled us forward into the mist. There were several cairns along the way that I thought were the summit, but they didn’t look big enough. Who would know if we did it or not? We could just touch the next cairn and call it quits..was one of the thoughts going through my head. But with Strava on and running, I knew we couldn’t cheat on his very first Munro, and I needed to set an example too!
There were parts of the last section where you couldn’t actually see anything of reference. If someone had closed my eyes and spun me round a few times, without a compass I’d only have the direction of the wind to go on to get back down.
After about 30 minutes and the wind behind us, we finally made it to the very windy summit of Ben Chonzie. Unfortunately the views were non existent, and the worst of any of my Munros to date, but it was another one ticked off the list.
Nathan made a point of adding another stone to the top of the ever growing summit Cairn. Something he wants to do on every Munro he climbs, and something I’m all for. It’s about making memories along this journey, and if that’s something he wants to do as part of his Munro journey, I’ll definitely encourage it.
Shades of Nevis.
We had planned to stop at the summit and eat my hastily prepared chocolate spread sandwiches, but it was far too windy at the top, no matter what side of the Cairn we went to. So we set off in the direction we’d come up, much to the annoyance of Roman, who wanted to keep going. With the fog as thick as it was I wasn’t going to run the risk of having him off the lead and disappearing never to be seen again, so the lead stayed on.
A few hundred metres from the top, the rain started to come down and the wind in our faces picked up it’s pace. Catching us unaware with the occasional large gust. I took the lead with Nathan behind me, trying to shield him as best I could, but I wasn’t 100% sure where I should turn left. I should’ve counted the Cairns on the way up, but no matter I thought, I can just check where I am on my phone…
This was easier said than done. With the rain and my thick woolen gloves, I couldn’t unlock my phone. I kept trying to wipe the rain off my phone, trying again and again, each time with a more frantic pace. I tore one of my gloves off with my teeth like a wild animal tearing strips of meat from it’s prey. My fingers pressed the screen harder still, 1 digit, 2 digits, error! Fek!
At this point we had been stationary for a couple of minutes and the sweat had started to cool around my body, leaving me cold and shivering with my stomach complaining loudly in the background. I recognised this feeling as a familiar sense of dread came over me. The last time I felt like this was at -6 on the top of Ben Nevis, except this time I had my son with me and was unsure which direction to travel in!
A Fresh View.
With my compass and printed map in my bag, I didn’t want to risk getting out the map just yet. It wasn’t laminated and I didn’t want it destroyed by the ever thickening rain drops. We needed to get down and out of the clouds as quickly as possible. I knew that if we took a slight left at the next Cairn and took a more diagonal path, we’d eventually meet up with the main path again and be able to descend that little bit quicker. Fortunately, this small gamble paid off and our little detour turned out to be a valuable shortcut, as we not only shaved some time and distance off, we got the wind out of our faces too.
The clouds started to thin out, and by the time we got to the steep section before the burn crossing, the rain had stopped and we ran into the first fellow walkers we’d seen all day! After almost losing one of my boots to a rather boggy patch, we met up with the land rover track once again and started to make our way back down towards the car.
The views finally opened up just as we got to the reservoir, but nothing more than a few hundred metres at best. What was a bit different, was actually seeing what we had walked up in the pitch black 2 hours previous. It was at this point when I realised how many sheep were on either side of us. No wonder Roman had been so eager to get off the lead and have a play with them!
As always, the last section always seems the longest, but eventually we spotted the car from the path and this always added that little extra spring to our steps. Nathan had smashed it. Never once did he moan about being too cold or sore (well maybe once!), and overall he did a fantastic job in some very tricky conditions. He did says he really enjoyed, even if he didn’t get the views he wanted, but he did definitely want to do another one. Fingers crossed I’ve inspired him to start something he can work on and be proud of as he grows up, and I’ll be there to help him as much as I can. I’d love to take him on a summit camp one day and watch the Milky Way, and maybe even the Northern Lights. There’s so much to look forward to over the coming years, and I couldn’t wait. I’d need to hurry Matt up and get him to pick our next Munro day out. It was now his turn to pick and drive!
