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37 - BEINN DEARG

           20.5 miles      2080 metres

Start                                         Thursday     12.13
Am Faochagach                                          13.22
Cona Mheall                                                 14.28
Beinn Dearg                                                  15.03
Meall nan Ceapraichean                             15.28
Eididh nan Clach Geala                               16.08
Seana Bhraigh                                              17.14
Finish                                                             20.06

Time:    Estimated    4.45      Actual    7.53

This leg would have been the last possibility of making up on the ratio of hours elapsed to peaks done. However after the appalling weather in the past 48 hours this has now become a mathematical impossibility. Added to that I realised that I had mismeasured this leg and that it is actually more than the 21 miles maximum that I had set for any leg – the real mistake however was that I told Ross that this was the case and, already demoralised by the weather and the inevitable failure to make a peak an hour, this was like a final blow to his spirit.

This was evidenced by his multiple attempts to cross the standard roadside fence to get started. It was very grey with no worthwhile views, and very wet and needed internal motivation to produce a good performance. Without this it must have been an interminable plod over these stunning hills.

For the rest of the team, most had finished bar the final push up Ben Hope which we all expected to be in the evening. We holed up in Ullapool for a day of torrential showers just wanting to get on. As the hours passed with no sign of Craig and Ross coming past in the car concern began to grow and we started to talk about mountain rescue, although the deadline for that never got down to the really worrying hour's time.

Looking at Ross's splits he seems to have moved at a pretty consistent slow jog/ walk pace. He appears to have had some hiatus between Ceapraichean and Clach Geal but his real trouble came at the end when he got down a path only to find that the stream he had to cross was an impassable torrent. He then climbed right back up to get round this. I can only assume that he went for the path to the north of Eididh nan Clach Geala and climbed right back to the plateau before finally descending the one from between E n C G and Meall nan Ceapraichean.

However he managed this, his split for this section suggests that he lost over an hour and a half on the run from the last summit which suggests that the blow to his morale at finding his way blocked removed his last competitive juices.

Looking back after the years, the frustrated feelings we had as a team over his long outing it is clear that Ross, who told me very shortly before the start of the relay that he hated running alone, was nevertheless committed to completing all his legs. When the weather was good, or he had company he produced excellent times. When the weather was very poor, or at night alone, which for him happened disproportionately often he was slow and steady.

This leg was no different until the body blow of the uncrossable stream when his spirit seems to have deserted him. The truth is that the average walker would see under 8 hours for this round as an impossible feat regardless of the weather.

Peaks done    273      Hours elapsed    277      Peaks to do    4

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