Saturday 14 November 2009
One from the vaults
Never. Ever. Again. Well, possibly never again :D
Original route was planned up the Pony Path, and then down the Fox Path, after some concern about the safety of a descent down the Fox Path we switched routes. This was a good move. A very good move. As we approached the main steep part of the Fox Path it look almost vertical, and there was a huge sense of WTF amongst the group.
The crawl (feet and hands had to be used) up it was slow, hard work, and a little unnerving with the frequent cries of 'below', the wind blowing up the slope, and the driving rain, made worse by the noise it was making on my waterproofs. My heart rate went up to silly levels during it, and legs felt really drained, but we made it to the summit (via another scramble over some bigger rocks).
As we were on the summit we were treated to a glimpse of blue sky and sun. If we'd been another 10 meters or so higher then I reckon we'd have had a view of cloud inversion, which would have been stunning. The descent down was a little hairy to start with due to the really high gusts of winds (i'd have loved an wind speed gauge at this point), but as soon as we made the descent lower it started become really nice. Then as we got even lower the view of the valley was amazing.