Night walkers

It really came as a surprise when our teenage son suggested a midnight hill climb.

Over the years we have tried to keep our New year celebrations interesting and varied.  We have gone to church parties, had house parties, gone to midnight fireworks and concerts and even just gone to bed. Last year was a disappointing end to the year with the celebrations we turned up at being cancelled due to the weather, so it was agreed that a new plan was required.

We had plenty of available choices living where we do, but from a random teenage brain came the suggestion that seemed to win the most favour.

As a family we are quite at home in the hills and on sunny or snowy days we will bundle ourselves into the car and head out to whichever incline suits our particular mood on that day. We have several favourites that can be reasonably completed on a Sunday afternoon or a Saturday morning and are within an easy thirty minute drive.

I have scaled a couple of peaks in the dark before, but it is usually mid summer when the darkness is at it’s shortest and the ground at it’s driest.

This was not the case on this occasion.

We have had the wettest December in living memory and the last day of this month was to be no exception. In truth I was looking for every and any excuse not to be outside as the clock turned 12. However, my resident weather vane with his app reliably informed us that the skies were to clear by ten, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened.

So hot chocolate was made, hot water bottles were filled and fleecy blankets packet into a rucksack.The house was scoured for torches and clothes were layered upon layer.

To the great delight of the younger offspring it snowed as we approached the flooded car park, not a blizzard so much as an icing sugar dusting. This was a tremendous help when the suddenly dropping temperature froze all of the surface water on the rocks.

Had we consulted a committee to do a risk assessment on our expedition there is no doubt that it would not have passed the incredulous wonderment stage. Nothing about the venture was sensible, trudging over a rapidly freezing rain soaked ascent in the dark with two children was something that I could picture myself trying in vain to explain to an irate mountain rescue team when our inevitable disaster prompted their arrival.

Ninety minutes later as we stood at the summit watching fireworks exploding from the ramparts of the ancient castles in Stirling and Edinburgh in one simultaneously panoramic vista all of these thoughts were gone. The sugary hot chocolate and energy bars were consumed as a thousand explosions rose from every town in the valley below and we observed from above, rather than the usual craning from below.

It was numbingly cold.

The rockets in my bag remained there as the lighter refused to come to the celebrations.  We were joined briefly by a few other hardy souls up there before we beat our hasty retreat downwards.

The descent is always faster.

That applies to everything in this life.

It was a mad notion that worked out very well,  I wouldn’t recommend doing what we did if you had never previously walked the hill. Visualising where you are heading greatly helps to stay on the indecernable path, because we were required to detour around marshy areas in the dark it would be easy to end up miles off track so having that vision was a great benefit.

So many times I have been cajolled into doing different things and ultimately greatly enjoyed the experience.  Comfort zones are exactly that, comfortable. While we stood atop the hill, several million people were sitting warmly at home in front of their TV watching those same fireworks we were, I wouldn’t have traded.

We need to push ourselves into the uncomfortable to experience the things others don’t.