Bohuntin Hill

There is a saying in mountaineering and hill walking circles along the lines that if you carry in your day sack absolutely everything you might need for an emergency night out on the hill then you will almost certainly end up having one. The implication I think is that your rucksack will be so heavy with the extra emergency kit that you will become exhausted carrying it. Tonight the same thing could have been said about my own rucksack on Bohuntin Hill except I was in pursuit of that emergency blip. I had the fanciful notion of a little clear spell, seeing some dark cherry red if not orange in the western sky and of course a bit of tasteful balancing fill in flash. To that end I had my SLR with heavy lens, my not that lightweight tripod, flash and radios, some spare batteries and my old survey pole for the flash which doubles up nicely as a walking pole and probe for deep snow. My personal emergency stuff was a couple of pears, headtorch and the very useful Viewranger navigation app on my phone.
It had been a horrible day at the desk and my head was muggy from fresh air deficit. I was perhaps over optimistic with my intended evening walk. I stepped on to the hill at 20 past 5 and very quickly the going got tough on deep soft snow. The 30 minute climb took more like 45 and the summit had a blizzard blasting across it. The summit cairn is at the far edge of the plateau (may be 500 metres) and you normally pick an easy route between little lochans and wet bottomed ditches of peat hags. Tonight they were all blown full of soft snow; one errant step and the snow was around your thighs. Any thought of the idyllic image I had in mind was long dashed and I simply wanted to get to the top and turn back. However since I had gone to the bother of carting that absurd amount of kit with me I was determined to use it. It was intensely cold at this point. With the feeling going out of my hands it was hard to repack the gear after the photo.
 
So that’s it; my emergency blip.
 

My camera is sitting on the desk as I type and it still feels like a block of ice.