Operacion Isla Del Oso

Going outdoors is often about the journey and what that brings with it, arrival at the summit or your campsite, waiting for that sunset you’ve walked all day hoping to see. Then there’s the return, breaking camp, the walk out with the mix of thoughts that often seems to bring.
I’ve been stuck on the same bit of hillside for two whole days and rather than being dull it’s been a joy. I saw the weather actually moving, passing over Cowal and creeping up the Clyde below me, the showers peeling off to drench Doughnot Hill of Muirshiel more often than me. That essence of what weather is, a living thing, is almost lost on a trek, walking through the weather is a different thing to feeling and watching it on its own journey.
The light passing through a slow southern arc changed the scenery every few seconds, the crags changing from defined, jagged streaks of black and pale grey to a blanket of textured khaki topped with a crown of pale blue winter sky. The clouds chopped the light and scattered it across the slopes and the woodland in random fluid patterns, every one carrying a little delight to the top of the crags and then out of sight.
The trees that made the spot so sheltered were a silent presence, nodding in the breeze yesterday and today bowing in the wind. I watched the sun sink and then set behind them, but I didn’t feel the urge to climb a little higher for a clear view, it was lovely enough as it was. In appreciation of standing still?
I finished packing the kit away, drank my cuppa and waited for darkness before I hitched myself into Wheelie and headed down.
Then the stress of just how late I’m running with this tent test hit me, but checking through all the tent photies revealed that I’d been subconsciously pointing the lens elsewhere through they day. Ah, the weight’s lifted again for just a little while.