#RDP TUESDAY – Rugged

RDP Tuesday! Rugged!

Rugged hills towered above me shocking me with their splendour. I had never seen anything quite like it before. They almost seemed to be calling me, but I knew that I would never scale their heights. I was not a climber, but just a humble walker in the hills and high fells. On this occasion though, I was making my way up Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. I had wanted to climb it for so long and I had no idea if I had the stamina to do it or not. It would have been easy to feel daunted, especially as I wanted to take the longer and more sceninc route up the mountain rather than the shorter and thus faster route. If I was going to climb this mountain, then I wanted to get as much out of the experience as possible. It had begun rather shockingly to me, as I had to scramble up what seemed almost like steep steps that had loose scree on them. It was not an easy climb, although to seasoned hill walkers it might have been child’s play. However, once I had got over that bit, things became easier and I found myself at a most beautiful tarn, with lush green grass all around it. This encouraged me and as I proceded up the mountain I found myself with ravines at the side of me and I could hear the sound of water falling. There was everything there. Things that I had never experienced before. It was as I passed the huge Great Gable on the right of me that I got a real feel of what mountaineering could really be like. I had never seen anything so massive or so rugged in my life. It could not have been seen and experienced from lower down, and only by walking in those fells and mountains could I have beheld this wonder. I looked and saw some climbers all roped up and conncected to each other, and this reminded me of how dangerous these mountains could be, despite thier great beauty. Indeed, as I approached the top of Scafell Pike, I met a boulderfield. It had been watned about this, and it was huge. There was no way up to the top of the mountain except by going over this boulderfield. It looked easy enough despite its size. It was only when I got going over it that I realised how dangerous it could be. Although many of the boulders were huge, they wobbled as I placed my booted feet on them and it would have been so easy to get my feet caught in the gap between them. In fact one lady of 70 years young had passed me, and it was the third time that she had been up the mountain that year. She told me of how, earlier in the year she had broken her ankle going up the mountain and had been really fed up that she had had to stop climbing it for a while. Eventually I did reach the top, but for the very first time I had realised just how rugged these mountain spaces were. After that they seemed to be calling me even more and I planned to climb Everest one day. Of course I never did it and now, my mountain climing days are over as I sit here in my bed in the total darkness every single day of my life. I am limited to listening to videos on You Tube of walks up the mountains and fells and sometimes I grieve over the fact that my mountain climbing days have been cut short and all those hills and mountains that I wanted to climb will never now be climbed. Still, I did it once, and had that amazing experience of climbing the highest mountain in England and I will never forget it.