Connections

Many years ago I found myself hanging from a belay high on the East walls of Gearr Aonach looking down into the Glen Coe valley. I was with Al. G. one of the most respected mountaineers and Instructors Scotland has ever produced, and a lad half my age just starting his own journey.
From our lofty earie we could see a speck of a coach pull into a bay, and tiny little ants clamber out. Part of me still imagines I could hear the click of shutters from half a mile above them, maybe a collective murmuring of appreciation. The young lad turned to Al and said "you must hate all these tourists clogging up the roads and never even leaving the lay by".
Al, always considered, took a moment. We swung in the breeze.
"No lad I don't" said Al "for one day that could be me. All those folk could have chosen to go to Betty's tearoom, or on the Distillery tour, or stayed on the couch. Instead they came to see the mountains. Perhaps they were the finest climbers of their day and that's caught up with them now, perhaps they've come one last time to see the hills of their youth or perhaps they've never left their home town before. But they chose to come here today. I hope I can still make that choice for years to come, and I hope it still stirs my soul"
There was a long silence. I could see in the lad an argument I once might have made too, but I'd heard from Al a wisdom I could hope to one day have. Those words have always stayed with me.

Today I gently wandered out from Mungrisedale to the fork of the wonderfully named Glenderamackin River where it meets Bullfell Beck. For pooch and I it was enough... for now.

I sat on the little wooden bridge now incongruously stranded by the slipping of land and the collapsing of banks. With the cloud low and swirling and the pooch playing in the water it was simply great to be. I sat a long mindful while, feeling a connection to that possible future, knowing that for me the wilder places will always hold a sense of wonderment, will always stir my soul.

Then it was swimming and physio - I'm not quite ready for those coach trips yet!