What "glad to be alive" looks like.

Today was a truly epic day in the mountains. Brett and I had planned to take in two Munro summits before dropping down to the remote Sourlies Bothy on the banks of Loch Nevis to meet our friend Daniel - and to join him for the last day of his coast-to-coast walk. A high camp and an early start saw us on the summit of Luinne Bheinn by mid morning but the horrific weather, which made it impossible to stand upright on the summit ridge, forced us to abandon the second summit and drop down into a remote glen for shelter. The horrors of our day all lay ahead - two and a half hours of rain had caused all the mountain burns to burst their banks. The Carnach river in the glen below had risen by 1.5 metres and resembled the Colorado River in spate. What should have been a 2 hour stroll to the bothy turned into a 10 hour trial of endurance and almost ended in tragedy at a difficult 10 metre river fording. With 50 years experience on the hills between us, this is the single worst day Brett or I had experienced and the closest we had come to ending up as a Mountain Rescue statistic.

We had never been so happy to arrive at our bothy and to see Daniel. Our remote mountain accommodation had no heating, a stone floor, no lighting and wooden sleeping platforms - and it was the most welcome shelter I have ever experienced.