Day 5- Our prayers are answered!!

Our spirits were really raised after waking up to brilliant sunshine and a perfectly calm loch; bearing in mind the day before it was rather……. the only word is tumultuous. I actually needed my sunglasses because of the glare from the water, our next base would be home for the next two days as we would be surrounded by mountains to conquer so we made it a good spot, we decided it was the most perfect spot for the theme of our expedition……. Loo with a view!

We went for a beach directly below Stac Pollaigh and Cul Beag; we camped on the sand to almost convince ourselves we were somewhere tropical and the morning’s temperatures such felt like considering we had been in snow for the last three days. We even set up a clothes line to dry our sodden lives before heading off up to Stac Pollaigh to walk around the base of the summit.

We had specified in our plan that we wouldn’t go to the summit for a multitude of reasons; the whole mountain is renowned for being eroded and very popular so we didn’t want to damage the summit rock further as the area is made up of sandstone, and from our research we knew that to get to the summit we would have to climb which we weren’t prepared to do especially without winter kit as it was all still covered in snow.

Following a path of footprints around the base we heard a call from above and stopped like two deer caught in headlights and looked at each other amazed, people after five days! It was quite strange sharing the area with other people when we had been so totally alone for so long, well five days is not a long time but there aren’t many times in modern society when you can truly get away completely from civilisation for even a day so we were cherishing the peace. After the climbers above we met a family on the path who asked us a few questions about the path, then a-  I’m going to say European as we couldn’t determine his accent, who was really interested in what we were doing and he was quite jealous we had done Suilven as apparently he had been weathered off the year before.

I quite enjoyed telling people our story as when you look at Izzy and I walking around we probably don’t look particularly outdoorsy at first but when we tell people what we’ve been doing they’re always shocked and I quite relish that look. Especially when in the hostel before we came home some Germans had done the Great Glen Way and had been freezing, wet and covered in blisters for four days, so I had a little evil laugh that we had been in worse weather and fared much better.

We walked back to our seclusion through the bog and cooked a hotpot, well I cooked which was amazing if I do say so myself. We had  automatically settled into a camp rhythm, I would cook while Izzy sorted out the tent and it was pretty much the same in the morning. I had tried to pack the 60litre dry bags in the tent once when it was raining and got really  frustrated with it, so I mainly stuck to cooking unless it was sunny (joke) and I could shove everything in.

Looking a little demented
and very pink but happy 
with my food

It was quite a peaceful, falling asleep to the lapping of the lake in front of the tent with flat ground to lie on, well not quite so peaceful when someone managed to convince herself that the lake would flood into the tent and if anyone knows Izzy well enough they’ll know she is quite vocal and repetitive about her worries. I get to have my own back though because I am analysing her as part of my dissertation project so her paranoia was actually quite helpful.