Well that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done! Around the Ring of Steall with a tent and food.

Really… Me and Angus packed our rucksacks Tuesday night, and the instant we tried to lift them off the ground, a small realisation that we were probably quite mad crossed our minds. The bags weren’t that heavy, if you took out The Tent. Add the Tent and it they weighed the same as a small child.

Now, strap a small child to your back and try to walk 10Km along a flattish road. You feel quite tired at the end. Go to bed knowing that tomorrow you’ll be carrying that weight up 900m and have it strapped to you for the next seven hours. Oh, and once you’ve done that, you’ll fall asleep for 13 hours then carry it all back the 10Km again.

Our first problem though was to get to Fort William… Trains cost too much, and we weren’t sure about the buses. Fortunately, while on the computer looking at bus prices, someone who’d been at the centre for an interview said he’d take us there on his way home. Cool, so that just leaves the journey home. For that we turn to the Internet and the wonderful thing known as ‘computer error’…

I asked the nice website to give me a ticket from Fort William to Tarbet. It came up with two - one for 23 pounds, one for 2 pounds. Thinking this a little odd, a journey of 80-odd miles costing less than a 6 mile journey back home, I tried to book it. It let me! Either it was some weirdo promotion or someone made a big mistake. Trying to get on the bus confused the driver, but his little ticket machine beeped in a comforting way and so he let us on.

Arriving at Fort William, we decided not to march straight to where we’d be sleeping, instead choosing to wander around the shops looking at stuff to weigh ourselves down with even more. I came out with some dehydrated food, a gas cannister, and three bags of sweets.

Not being able to put it off any longer, what with going there with the purpose of walking, we set off to find our sleeping place. Our chosen place being just next to the now empty Mountain Rescue post at the bottom of Steall Falls (which are huge! And sound like wind). The walk down not being of great interest, it was a road, it went around bends, over hills, had a stripe down the middle, the odd motorist trying to run us down, the usual. That is, until reaching The End Of The Road…

You know you’re at The End by the signs telling you you’re going to die and that this rather interesting looking path Is Definately NOT The Path Up Ben Nevis, and to make sure someone knows your route plan because if they don’t NOBODY WILL FIND YOU. Passing these signs, assuming you’ve not run off screaming, takes you along a rough path with some nice steep bits and some cool eroded rock and gorges.

The first thing that hits you upon reaching the Mountain Rescue post is the waterfall. It’s massive! It’s also on the other side of The Wire Bridge. This bridge is nothing more than three pieces of wire cable stretched across the river. It’s only a few metres above the water, but the water’s freezing cold and hypothermia on the first day wouldn’t help (that comes at night when your sleeping bag stops being warm…). Angus went first, and managed to stay dry. I followed next, tring not to swing too much, or overbalance. I reached the end, dumped my bag and proceeded to cross the bridge again, stopping in the middle to jump up and down, setting off some large oscillations that tried to shake me off. You can have a lot of fun with some tight wire :-)

After pitching our tent and discovering just how vile dehydrated ‘chicken curry’ can taste (my god, you could fix walls with it, or soak up a toxic spill, just don’t eat it) we went to sleep - it being dark and there not being much to do, my book weighing something and not being vital to my survival.

I awoke at 3am intensely desparate for a pee and not very warm. And so began the fun tent game of putting on all my clothes (which wouldn’t be removed for the next three days, ensuring I had a space on the bus all to my self) in the dark without waking Angus up. ‘bzzzt’ went the zips and I ventured out into the dark coldness, except it wasn’t dark, it was very bright, the moon shining down, casting a shadow of me on the floor. Eventually this strange vibrating feeling started and deciding I was probably cold I went back in, not noticing a raise in temperature in the tent I kept all my clothes on.

Morning broke, as did the blisters on my foot and we packed the tent up. The Ring of Steall is a great walk, there’s a nasty stomp up 900m of grass, followed by some excellent ridges and tops to teeter around on. All of this excellent walking if you’re not dragging extra ballast around strapped to your back. Then it just becomes a case of not falling over or passing out.

The most frustrating part is you just can’t go any faster, there’s one speed you get stuck in and that’s it. Any slower and you’re sat on a rock, any faster and you just can’t. The legs just won’t go any faster. Part of you wants to sit on a rock and go to sleep, the other part wants to ditch your bag, and the small sane part forces you onwards. I’ll have to go back and do it without the tent, there’s a few sharp ridges that look nice. It’d be excellent when covered in snow.

On our walk in we were followed for some distance by two random walkers and their dog. This in itself isn’t that strange, what was strange though was the way they didn’t seem to care much about their dog. It’d run off, and sit in the road in front of cars. It wasn’t until I overheard them say it wasn’t theirs and had started following them that morning, on the Ring of Steall, and had been with them since then. The two random walkers and their new-found friend went off, later passing us in their car, sans dog. Last we saw that day it’d attached itself to some old woman and a Japanese tourist. Or so we thought… while packing the tent and preparing to drag ourselves up the hill, what black and white furry thing did we see going up the path again? I wonder if it’s still round there… We could have phoned its owner - if there was a mobile signal in Glen Nevis.

For the second night we froze next to the river that runs down towards the farm at Achriabhach. It being especially cold around 6am, the tent providing no insulation at all, my sleeping bag not doing a lot either. Sitting munching porage watching the sun come up is nice though.

After plodding down the road to Fort William there was quite a lot of time to waste until the bus left. We went into Nevis Sport to get some food and to look at stuff. On the way up the stairs to the cafe Sod’s Law made an appearance - I’d just walked 30-odd kilometres without incident, nothing more than a few blisters and sore shoulders. I go up the stairs, get a boot caught in a step and rip one of the eyelets holding the lace to my boot out. Typical… And I can’t afford new boots right now.

Bought the Matrix Reloaded on DVD too. While sitting watching it I came to the conclusion that spending three days smelling bad, dragging the world’s heaviest tent around, and freezing at night was probably worth it. It was one of those things that shows what you can do :-) Should also make walking around with just some water and spare clothing a bit easier, and my ML Training shouldn’t be as much of a shock now (we have to do an overnight camp, carrying all our kit…).

Need to borrow a better tent and sleeping bag though!