It's all downhill from here!

Another Thursday night spent scrambling up Cochno.

This time we went straight up to the top.

We began our run with a rather traumatic account of Fiona outdoors mammogram. (Which she had had today.) She is threatening to make it the first post on her new blog so I will leave her to tell you all about that. But by the time Superfit Dave and I set out we felt we had experienced the whole thing with her and thus were equally traumatised!

As we stepped out of the car it was torrential sleet and it looked to be a real battle of a run. Fortunately it eased off as we scrambled through the first field. Images of battle axe nurses (of ample bosom) tugging at Fiona outdoors' less than ample bosom were soon replaced by the concentration, needed to stay upright.


Flying Robin was also there making it look easy.....

I don't seem to be getting any better at running up hills but I will persevere. It's still worth it to see the view over Glasgow from the top, the twinkling stars in the sky and the joy of knowing 'It's all down hill from here'

Cochno the RIGHT way!

Superfit Dave,The Professor and the Flying Robin. (He always seems to get there first!) (sorry about the photo quality it was pretty dark!)


I was out with the Clydeside orienteers again this evening.

Superfit Dave was along to show Professor Steve and I the error of our ways and iron out a few wrong turns!

It was a lovely clear night, although in parts it was so windy I though I might have been in the Isle of Man. There were five of us in total.

It was less exciting actually being able to see but it was good to see where we had gone wrong! When we reached to the top it was clear that we hadn't actually reached the 'top! We had reached a false top a few foot short of the True top! This in turn had thrown The Professor into confusion as the directions just didn't add up from there!

We did retrace our steps of a fortnight ago, before continuing on, the right way! Everyone wanted to see what we had done!

It was a great run. The descent was exhilarating. That's the bit I really enjoy. I think it's because by then your lungs are open and it feels like you're ready for anything!

City Glow

Steve


Spent too long in the car yesterday. I therefore couldn't wait to get out on the hills again. I was feeling pretty tired by the time I arrived at Steve's house (the meeting point) but knew that this was just what I needed.

It turned out to be just the two of us. Super fit Dave was in Birmingham. Deciding to do Cochno Hills we set off. I was aware that Steve has done this run plenty of times so didn't think twice about it..I didn't even take my garmin!

As we climbed the early stages of the hill I realised that we weren't going to see the Glasgow Fireworks scheduled to take place. The cloud was low and we were ascending into a wet misty fog.

We decided to go for the 'lower' of the hills, giving us a slightly longer run (apparently). I had not done this route before, but given that we weren't going to see anything from the top it made little difference.

We huffed and puffed our way to the top. It was incredibly wet and slushy. My Achilles was really feeling the constant stretching in the later sections.

We didn't spend long on the top. Just long enough to hear the big nothingness that you get on foggy, dark nights. Steve led the way down. A particularly steep and craggy bit of hill. It wasn't till we had reached a huge bog that he casually admitted..."I don't actually recognise any of this!"

Now I wasn't about to panic, not at this stage. I mean how lost could we be!

We changed direction and came across the lake..this should have been good. Steve decided we should follow the lake edge to the causeway. This would have been fine but I was sure it was in the other direction.




By now my thoughts were turning to possible actions:

Plan A

Call Mountain Rescue or just call Marco Direct. Did I have his number...sure Debs would give it to me! Hmmmm then the explanations as to why I was on the top of a 'hill' (do they even rescue you from hills or only proper 'mountains?') with no survival gear, no garmin (why oh why when I hardly ever even do a road run without it!!)
At least I had taken my phone.

Plan B

I call Dave in Birmingham, he knows these hills like the back of his hand, but would he be able to identify our position from a picture of this particular rock I was stood on?

Plan C

Think hard and follow our noses.... for a bit longer anyway.

Other more amusing thoughts were flickering through my mind which I can't say I entertained for long. They were more along the lines of . Lost. American Werewolf in London. Blair Witch Project. Two fools on a hill top in the fog at night. (OK I made that one up!)





So, after a while of traversing the Loch I suggested we switch our head lamps off, just to see if we could see anything through the mist. As our eyes became used to the darkness we could just make out the silhouette of the hill we had been at the top of. With little else in the way of ideas I suggested we climb back up and see if we could work our bearings out from there.

Lights back on we climbed again, upon reaching the top we killed the beams once more to see if we could see anything other than fog. At first it was just pure whiteness, Steve was hankering to go off in the direction I was sure we had just come from. I was beginning to feel cold now as the sweat of the climb was cooling and the air was chilly. Gaining confidence in my gut feelings I became sure I could make out an orange glow percolating through the fog to one side, in the other direction. I was sure this was the light pollution from the city. We took that option and headed downwards again.

To my relief we hit a track which started to become more familiar. My visions of attempting to build a bivouac in the marshy Cochno hills were happily discarded.

We made it back to the car in no time.

It's amazing how quickly you can become disorientated in such circumstances, once doubts start to creep in and you loose confidence in your direction it doesn't matter if you're only 100 meters away from where you need to be. We were never far off the trail but if it hadn't been for the Glasgow glow we could have been up there for a lot longer.



From now I will always take an extra layer, charged Garmin and my phone. No matter how experienced my companions are!