Day 7: Started as all the others. The blue hour’s cold hues tried to penetrate my sleeping bag, it tryed hard to find an opening as I snuggled deeper into its warm interior, knowing that I would have to unzip it sooner or later and drag on as many warm clothes as quickly as possible. The blue hour is only temporary, normally only about 15 minutes and is always followed by the golden hour, when the sky lights up in orange, red and purple hues and suddenly the day has begun. It’s the same with your clothes, firstly they feel cold, often damp and uncomfortable, but like the sunrise the warm slowly filters through. For every day to start with a visible sunrise, is worth putting up with that 15 minutes of cold and I have to say, so far we’ve been blessed!
Stephen and I leave the hunter in his temporary home and make our way up to a distant cairn on the top of a pass. From there the day was a gentle downhill wander to our hut for the night. It was an easy day. A day we could look up from our feet and admire the high snow capped hills on our left and the rugged cliffs of the lower mountains on our right. A day to daydream, which is something I’m very good at.
The penultimate hut was probably worse than the first. The first was a rambling, tumbled down disjointed hut that needed some TLC, however Nerumaq hut was probably the worst kept of all the huts we stayed in. It was surrounded by litter and toilet paper, with rubbish bags that had been scavenged by the local wildlife. Why this hut was worse than any other, neither of us could fathom, but it definitely required some attention.
Tomorrow is our penultimate day and our rucksacks are getting ever lighter!
Day 8: Started like all the other mornings, a perfect start. We were staying in a hut that was surrounded by high mountains in a deep cut valley. The sun is past its Autumn Equinox and the days have got noticeably shorter whilst we’ve been here and the sun is lower in the sky. I’m not trying to give anyone a geography lesson, I’m just giving the reasons that in this deep East/West cut valley the sun struggled to rise above the Southern mountains and it wasn’t until midday and a lowering of the mountain barrier did the sun finally give me her warmth. Stephen was probably about an hour behind me so the power of the sun came even later to him.
Only a couple of things worth mentioning and they were two river crossings. Let’s just say I had to take my boots off twice to wring out my socks and realised that this old man’s balance isn’t as good as it should be! The rest of the walk was similar to yesterday with the path wandering slowly down the valley, through the familiar birch and willow scrub and the never ending peaty bogs.
The hut for the night, like many of the others is situated in a prime location giving uninterrupted 360 degree views.
Tomorrow is our last day and with that always comes mixed emotions… looking forward to a beer or two and a meal that I don’t have to rehydrate and of course a comfy bed. On the other side of the coin, walking in such a pristine environment and seeing the mountains and the flora and fauna will be very hard to give up.
I’ve mentioned many times the one man that taught me how to appreciate the mountains. And that even now I know he walks with me and constantly reminds me to always look back, as the view behind can often be more spectacular than the one in front. He’s always there in the back of my mind and he always will be, but more especially on these trips as he loved the mountains so much. One other person who always gets my special thanks and love, who tolerates my continual need to walk all over the world. Although the mountains bring me peace she brings me complete happiness… Carolynn.
