Stob Dearg
For many years Joachim, Markus, Stefan, Thomas and I have been spending a long weekend together once a year for hiking. After having been rather “flat” so far, we chose Scotland for 2008. For quite some time I wanted to introduce the boys to the beauty of the Highlands and above all to my passion for the Munros. But it was also clear to me that, in contrast to the previous hikes, I should and had to explicitly point out seriousness, weather conditions and conditional conditions. Which, of course, should prove to be the case. And since we still had a bed available and in my opinion Cord would also fit well with the boys, we granted him asylum for the 4 days in Scotland.
After we had flown from Cologne to Edinburgh at the lecture, Cord arrived in Cologne coming from Berlin, followed first the trip to Kinlochleven. In Callander we bought food and drinks and then drove through Rannoch Mor with obligatory photo break. The weather was fresh but pleasant. As we approached Glen Coe, majestically guarded by the big shepherd, my hint “we’ll go up there tomorrow” caused a rather disbelieving shake of the head. In the Glen Coe itself we took another photo break. After that we went straight to Kinlochleven to move to the beautifully situated Garbh Bhein Cottage, which offers great views of the Mamores. Beer, fire and dinner were the successful conclusion to the arrival day.
The next morning it showed up that my reference to the Scottish weather conditions and the insistent requests to take rainproof clothes had not been in vain. It was raining heavily, visibility was severely restricted and motivation had dropped considerably. Here it showed up that it is of advantage to have motivation artists and rainignoranten thereby. At 10 o’clock we stood – still a bit insecure, but at least fully dressed and equipped – on the parking lot near Altnafeadh and started, defying the rain!
The steep ascent through the Coire na Tulaich took up all our concentration, as we … [Read More]