Sea to Summit
Well, we didn’t quite start at sea level, and come to think of it, we didn’t quite get to the summit. I’m not a liar – it’s just hard to put ‘not quite’ in a title – takes away from the effect a little.
Plodding my way up the valley, I got a sore neck from looking up to find the tussock; walking to the tops is a lot easier on the other side of the divide! After a typically wet, knee-jarring West Coast boulder hop followed by a typically brutal climb to the tops, Jake, Emma, Tom and I collapsed in the snowgrass significantly later than we should have got there.
We cast around for a low-level campsite on the ridgetop as Emma and Tom had to be in Rotherham by 2pm the next day. Clag began to form, which was to become a theme of the trip. A word of warning – even the West Coast dries out – I definitely didn’t expect water to be so scarce. Jake and Tom sacrificed some precious altitude to drop down to a creek and fill up some dry bags; if they can keep water out, they can keep water in!
After nattering away for a few hours and straining our eyes trying to glass through the fog, I spotted our first tahr only 550m from camp. He was a very promising young bull but needed plenty more age. As the fog began
