Hey everyone! I apologize it's been so long since my last post. Life has gotten incredibly busy this past week / week and a half. So, without further ado, here goes week 3 and a little extra.
I had, along with school, two big trips that I went on. The first one, Loch Lomond, was incredible. Easily, Loch Lomond was my favorite thing I have done so far. Loch Lomond is a national park here in Scotland, comparable to Yellowstone or the Adirondacks. The park itself protects a collection of "Lochs" (lakes) that were formed when the glaciers retreated north from continental England. The glaciers, upon making their slow crawl back up North, gouged the land creating deep lakes, and steep hills. While the park itself is technically in the Lowlands of Scotland, the park does cross the boundary into the Scottish Highlands, though it is certainly not considered as such. Regardless, the average height of the mountains (hills, if you've ever been out west), are around 3,000 feet. 3,000 feet of steep, steep climbing. Unlike the Adirondacks, which have been theorized to have been around (in one form or another) since the dawn of time, constantly going through cycles of growth and decay due to tectonic plate movement (our current Adirondacks are about 1,000 million years old and slowly shrinking back into the ocean) - the Lomonds are around 13,000 years old. They are steep and prominent as opposed to the old slopes we're used to in the North Eastern United States.
And it was these young, steep mountains I decided to climb on a foggy Friday morning. I and my two flatmates, Tim and Ryan, woke up around 7am to catch a train and arrived at the town of Arrochar, a sleepy little tourist town with about one main street and a population of around 50 (I'm guessing). The entire town was nestled between arches of green and grey mountain. As I said, it was foggy out, and the fog covered the tops of the mountains giving the impression that someone had put a fluffy gray lid over the sky, and the lid was being held up by the mounds of earth all around. Again, its is no mystery to me why such fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings were born in land like this. It is seeped with magic.
We passed through the town on its one main street, taking a large half-circle around a clear and reflective Loch. There was a dilapidated dock in the center of it, and served as a rotting reminder that, at one point, this had been a bustling town with a port and all.
The climb was steady and steep. And it was rocky. When glaciers retreat, they don't do so gently. They churn the earth, dragging with them rocks and dumping them off wherever they see fit. And so, the landscape of the mountain we were climbing, Ben Arthur, bore the scars in the form of boulders everywhere. Some (as pictured above) were mild in size and could be easily jumped up on. However, others were about as large as a camper. We weaved in and out of a field of boulders for about an hour and a half, consistently climbing up.
For those who don't know, hiking, being in the woods, is probably my favorite thing in the world to do. Not only are the views spectacular, but the stillness and the peace that surrounds you and becomes part of you just amazes me. Humanity, despite popular belief, actually relies on the natural world. Sure, we get our food and water from the earth. But there's a deeper connection there. Humanity (as in Homo Sapiens) is about 1.8 million years old. As I said, the Adirondacks are about 1,000 million years old, and before that the Lomonds were under sheets and sheets of ice, but still there. We are young, and hiking in the mountains, seeing rocks that have weathered more winters already than I ever will, and will continue to weather more after I am gone, is a humbling experience. Along with the healthy does of humility, however, comes something else. I don't know how many of you hike, or go adventuring or such, but nature, according to Richard Louv, the author of The Last Child in the Woods, nature actually decreases stress, increases creative thinking, and the air is good for physical well-being. Nature, notably mountains, have always stood over us, watching us, for as long as our DNA has been coded as it has. I am a firm believer that, in nature, we can slowly reforge the largely broken evolutionary line that connects us right back into the natural world.
Back on the ground, the hiking was hard. The rocks were smaller, more exposed to extreme weather the higher we got. The grasses were tough, and visibility was nil as the fog billowed around us. It was so thick that, if one were to concentrate at a certain area, then they could actually see the physical droplets of water dance in the wind. Despite being robbed of the undoubtedly breathtaking views of the sleepy town we left behind, the fog gave the landscape an other-worldly feel. And it dimmed the noise of cars from the freeway. We felt as a lone trio, surrounded only by wilderness, and I was happy. We took our lunch about 2000 feet up the face of the mountain. We couldn't see more than 25 feet in front of us, so the only marker for increased elevation was the cold. The wind was beginning to grow ice-teeth and the breeze that had playfully tousled hair suddenly began to dive down the back of our necks and chill our spines. Coats zipped up quickly and we pushed on.
I'm not sure when it happened, but after a while I noticed a change in the gray of the fog. When you're in the thick of it, fog is a monotonous color and depth, like swimming to the bottom of a lake and looking, there's only so much you can see before darkness envelopes everything. However, and ever so slightly, I began to notice the gray receding to a whitish color, and visibility began to increase by inches, then feet, then yards.
As suddenly as we stepped into the fog, we stepped out. And the change was dramatic. One second I was looking into a film of white, then next I looked out behind me and saw a distinct border between cloud and sky. I yelled back down to Tim and Ryan something along the lines of "the fog broke!" and sprinted up the rest of the mountain. I was not disappointed.
Fortunately for us, the fog was low hanging enough to give the illusion that each peak was an island jutting out of a flowing gray sea. This picture is why Wordsworth was the quote of choice to begin this blog post. To grace the peak of a mountain is to see the world in a different perspective. It is hard, and that's why not everyone does it. It is dangerous, as hikers are killed yearly in every country for various reasons. This land is not owned by or pandered towards human comfort, and that's the joy if it all. To walk in a place that has no sidewalks, where there's no McDonald's around the corner, were you are not walled in by people, is one of the greatest joys in life. I have never felt more clarity, nor more purpose, than in the wild. Maybe it has something to do with the archaic mountains. Maybe it has something to do with me being a bit more Neanderthal than I'd like to believe. Who can say. I've found no better balm for the soul or psyche, though.
After an hour or so, we left the peak, thus ending our day's adventure. And my goodness, was it ever needed. Mountains, for me, always put me back into place, and give me a healthy measure of perspective. In a world this beautiful, it can't be all bad.
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