Day 2- First and hardest mountain day? Bring it on!

We had an early start with some gross porridge (we couldn't quite get the breakfast part of our day spot on) we walked on along a path of sorts through the bog, as we found that any path that might actually exist here was just slightly trodden down grass so normally it was easier to follow your own or the quite obvious deer trails. We walked parallel to the lake then made our way up to the base of Suilven to walk up the middle to Bealoch Mor; it was a really steep walk but barely took any time at all, once on top we carried on up to Caisteal Laith which is the higher of the two peaks. We had a few sketchy moments when the wind would suddenly gust as there are a few exposed parts on the ridge so we bravely followed the tracks of a hare and crept along.  Once on the top there was a mandatory summit selfie then we retreated back down as there wasn’t much of a view due to the cloud anyway, as if I would expect anything else from my time of climbing mountains. Even so we headed off the other side of the slope we had come up and began the long trudge over to the base of Canisp, we made our way over a bridge and up a track and we were able to then head up the ridge.

By this point we had swapped the bag over so now I was feeling light as a feather compared to earlier so I was able to walk much better, I was still pretty happy whenever we stopped for a second, as I was panting anyway! Thankfully we had seen the summit before the clouds surrounded it otherwise that climb would have been false summit central! We set a goal to get to the next false summit we could see each time to keep us going at a steady pace as by that time with all the walking across the bog we were a little tired but we could still go strong. Finally at the top we chose the route down and headed off; I knew I wouldn’t enjoy the walk back as we had to descend Canisp all the way to the lake at the base before walking back up and over a load of lumps to get around to the right side of Suilven, it added up to a lot of total height gain for the day; however I didn’t expect it to turn into the “misfortunate incident it did”.

 

So on getting up to the lumps to walk around Suilven (and a fall in the river for me) it started to snow quite heavily and we couldn’t see a lot of anything so we took a bearing to make sure we didn’t wander around in the wrong direction and kept going, it began to get dark and head torches really don’t make much difference when you’re trying to see through snow. I was definitely pretty cold by this point my feet were numb and I was still wet from my unintended slip in the river so we kept marching and eventually got a little confused as to our exact location. So we followed a stream down to the lake which was the best way to find our way back to camp however this left us with a slight dilemma, we were unsure just how far along Suilven we had walked, it felt like further than the time suggested, so did we go left along the lake or right? Izzy in her infinite wisdom saved the day and said right so we turned around and soon saw the canoe covered in snow lying right where we had left it that morning, happiness again!! We made some food and got dry and laughed at how crazy the weather had suddenly gotten, complete whiteout and heavy snow and trying to avoid disorientating yourself among all of the boggy lumps; it was definitely a challenge but one we had won and were quite proud of ourselves for.

The day had started at 9 and finished at half 10 when we found the tent so we most definitely earned some pesto pasta courtesy of Izzy, it was possibly one of the longest days I’ve ever had walking but I’m proud that we managed to walk up and down two mountains separated by at least a kilometre of boggy terrain and get back in one piece not to mention the fact that we started every mountain from basically sea level so our legs definitely felt every metre of those mountains.

Suilven was such an amazing mountain, I recall from the paddle along it the day before how mesmerised we were by the sight of it, I am sure we have never seen a mountain like that in Britain and it has definitely inspired us to research the formation of this unique mounds of rock; as while we were there we ruled out glaciers and rivers and volcanoes so being novice geologists we were a little stumped.  

One important lesson of the day was never underestimate the power of your sleeping bag, it was all I could think about for the last few hours in the dark, to get cocooned into it and warm my feet up. When you’re out in a remote place those are the thoughts on your mind, not what’s going on in your favourite TV series or posting statuses on Facebook, you get to reduce your life to all of the simple basic needs. Some may understand me when I say life becomes just about the base level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (food, shelter, warmth) and I have found it is very peaceful that way and I was quite happy (although the daily toilet need was a pain when you were all snuggled up).