Lochan na h-Earba

A really foul and savage day when out exposed to the elements.

The big walk strategy worked well yesterday and we had two well rested and calm yellow dogs by night time. There was no repeat of the previous evening's wall to wall wrestling. We didn't dare short change the guys on exercise today. The tramp up to Lochan na h-Earba would do very nicely thank you.

While the air temperature was up to around 4 or 5 the wind made it feel bitterly cold. As we gained higher ground the gusts were capable of making you take an involuntary sideways step to retain an upward stance, not unlike many folk who would have been exiting the Fort William pubs last night.

The Friday night at the start of the Christmas break is known as "Mad Friday" in Lochaber and the bars do a roaring trade.

Any way our march, Bruce, Bob and Caley continued up the winding track and while Bruce stayed pretty much at my side the two yellow boys raced about on the surrounding slopes and always seemed to manage to find a stick to jostle with.

As the loch came into view you could see the wind whipping up clouds of spray. It was more like a stormy ocean than a wee hill loch. I had gone to the trouble of packing the big camera and tripod in the rucksack. By the time I had extracted from its bag and mounted it on the head, a few seconds, the front of the lens was covered in droplets despite my best efforts and my subsequent shots were all affected to some degree. Given the difficulty in standing upright this was probably not a tripod day in any case.

A discussion for another blip perhaps but I always think photographers are very poorly served in terms of tripod offerings from the various manufactures compared with the infinitely more robust and stable versions sold for use by theodolite and GPS users.

Amway, despite drips on lens issues which I could be forgiven for today, I actually had a difficult choice. While he is relatively laid back on his approach walk Bruce always joins in the fun with his younger pals when he get to the beach so that is the snap.