A return to Loch Hourn

Once my friends had set off back across the Channel, I paddled on my own into Knoydart, up Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis. Maybe in search of my youth as well as the sea.. There were a lot of porpoises around, it is difficult to tell if they come up beside you by chance or design. 

The weather was threatening at times,

 but still mostly sunny.

The glaciers collected stones from all over Scotland for this raised  beach on the Sound of Sleat, a beautiful if windswept spot, heaven for any rock collector . The top beaches have nicely sorted frost polygons, a seasonally frozen sea was lapping at the permafrost in those days.

Still bleak enough in bad weather.

A walk up Ladhar Beinn, it all looked very familiar,

even the islets where Loch Hourn narrows.

Back home, I rummaged through the dusty boxes; here it was, a faded slide taken from my loch-side campsite in Spring 1977. Ladhar Beinn is the highest point on the skyline.

 Together with my younger self; standing stiffly for the clockwork and unreliable, especially in the frost, self timer; already a solitary wanderer. Wool from head to toe in those days. I never imagined that 35 years later I would still be wild camping along the loch shores, or pacing the hills.