This trip was notable in several ways and it’s stayed in my mind because of that. It was a glorious day whatever way you look at it and I had an excellent long walk in up Glen Nevis to have a wander over the Aonachs’ Beag and Mor in fine snowy conditions.
I met a fella as we both worked our way through some icy rocks in the sun, I think on Aonach Beag. We stopped and chatted for a bit and went back on our opposing directions.
I spend some time on Aonach Mor as the light was dimming and as the sun set behind Ben Nevis a little patch of cloud appeared and wrapped around the Ben below the summit and over the edge of the CMD arete. Very atmospheric, very pretty, worth some cold fingers to watch with a cuppa.
As I left to take a steep line down west to lose height quickly I bumped into another lonely figure with a ginger beard and a fancy Rab eVent shell suit on. We stopped and chatted for a bit and went our separate ways.
Later on my way down the line of the burn to Steall I caught a bright silver flash in the water under my headtorch beam and went to look. A bright shiny quartz boulder. Lovely.
I dug it out and put it in my pack. It was too big, it was too heavy, it’s still at my front door today.
Back at home the wonders of the internet surprisingly filled in some blanks. I went on the old OutdoorsMagic website to share my fun times and it turned out my first chance meeting was with Steve Morley, a familiar name from the forums and someone who I hadn’t met in real life yet. One of many from that place I can still counts as friends today.
When he thought I’d stole his photie because it was so similar to one of his own taken when we were standing just a few feet apart, the other stranger turned out to be Steve Perry, now sadly passed, who was on his continuous round of the winter Munros.
It’s a small world but it can give you big memories and bigger smiles.
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