Can you see very much here? No? Nor could I at the time.
As you may have gathered, I did my first head torch guided run last week. So today, as the sun set and the day cooled, I struck out alone to the trails around the Peak.
I had not considered several crucial things. My first run had been with many people; we needed torches for minutes at a time; we never strayed far from roads. Tonight’s escapade had none of these things.
The sun disappeared just after my route got jungly and unlit. My courage began to fail me when the torch-beam looked weak, I had not seen another soul for 20 minutes, and I knew there were 30 minutes of running to civilisation. Some stats:
No. shadowy figures that turned out to be trees: 8
No. non-existent footsteps heard: 5
No. frogs landed on my feet (“ARGH!”): 3
No. times The torch. Went. Out: 1 (I’d dislodged a battery. And emitted whimpering noises)
No. dogs: 1. (It trotted ownerless into my lamplight, stood its ground 20m away and growled softly. I thought the following: What would I do if it attacked me? How do you fight a dog? What if it was persistent - would I have to kill it? How do you even do that, chuck it off the mountain?! Oh bollocks! By the time I’d had this stream of consciousness, it was well behind me)
I summoned enough resolve to take the longest, brightest exposure photo to give you an idea how dark it got…VERY.
As you may have gathered, I did my first head torch guided run last week. So today, as the sun set and the day cooled, I struck out alone to the trails around the Peak.
I had not considered several crucial things. My first run had been with many people; we needed torches for minutes at a time; we never strayed far from roads. Tonight’s escapade had none of these things.
The sun disappeared just after my route got jungly and unlit. My courage began to fail me when the torch-beam looked weak, I had not seen another soul for 20 minutes, and I knew there were 30 minutes of running to civilisation. Some stats:
No. shadowy figures that turned out to be trees: 8
No. non-existent footsteps heard: 5
No. frogs landed on my feet (“ARGH!”): 3
No. times The torch. Went. Out: 1 (I’d dislodged a battery. And emitted whimpering noises)
No. dogs: 1. (It trotted ownerless into my lamplight, stood its ground 20m away and growled softly. I thought the following: What would I do if it attacked me? How do you fight a dog? What if it was persistent - would I have to kill it? How do you even do that, chuck it off the mountain?! Oh bollocks! By the time I’d had this stream of consciousness, it was well behind me)
I summoned enough resolve to take the longest, brightest exposure photo to give you an idea how dark it got…VERY.
No comments:
Post a Comment