Ben Resipole and the technophile

Rob and Zak at 845m

We all know that the Norwegians are world leaders at; being Vikings, getting to the S.Pole first, blowing up Nazi heavy water plants and putting their oil income into a sovereign wealth fund instead of giving it to the all ready rich. Until yesterday I thought they were world leaders at forecasting Scottish weather (www.yr.no). Saturday was supposed to be bright and sunny and after a week of dreichness the views from the top of Ben Resipole would be magnificent. Not so... the Norwegians failed , it was wet, cold and claggy above 500m.

At the top, 850m above Loch Sunart we met two walkers who had come up from Strontian by the East ridge using  GPS. this was no ordinary GPS, apart from being bright orange it "tweeted" the owner's current location to has girlfriend in London! As an elderly curmudgeon I marvel at these pieces of high tech kit and how necessary they are to the mountain experience. In the Tiso mountain equipment shop in Glasgow last month I saw a tiny video camera, size of a matchbox,  that attached to your climbing or canoeing helmet  and presumably tweeted your partner with current location and activity.

We got back to the car, six and a half hours after parking it,  by following the burn that led us to the top and instead of tweeting Dormouse I used my land line phone before an early bath. Oh.... and apologies to the man in the yellow jacket I didn't realise he was in the back ground, "gazing upon the hedge" as Shakespeare has it (A Winter's Tale).