With mountain weather sometimes you just can’t win
Ihave a walking friend who drives me mad. He brings good banter, a ready smile, doesn’t snore, and he’s pretty handy at buying chocolate and making tasty sandwiches. The perfect hillwalking companion, you might think. He’s not actually that bothered by hills – he’s quite often cycling, or stand-up paddle boarding, or attending cheese festivals on a weekend. But when he is free, he’s generally up for the trip.
He’s also one of those annoyingly competent people. I’m a planner – I pore over maps for long hours before a walk. He doesn’t bother, and seems to barely look at the route I’ve plotted, but his innate sense of direction is racing-pigeon sharp. Never once has he walked in anything but the correct direction when coming off a summit in cloud. There I am, legs planted, earnestly twiddling my bezel, and he just strolls off into the mist, absent-mindedly rooting around in his pockets for another brownie bite. And his hill fitness is impressive. He glows when I sweat. He hops off greasy slabs athletically, as I teeter and wobble my way slowly downwards.
But there’s one thing that he gets wrong every time. And that’s which coat to wear. “I’ll just wear this,” he said to me one morning recently in north Wales, as he zipped up a fleecy soft shell. It was pouring with rain outside. “You’ll need a waterproof,” I frowned, trying not to sound like his mother. “This is waterproof.” “It’s not.” “Why not?” “Er, because it’s not made of fabric that will stop the water getting through. It’s windproof. Not waterproof. You’ll get wet.” He looked at me like a surprised lamb. “It’ll be fine,” he smiled, and strolled out of the door of the B&B. I didn’t even have time to talk about waterproof trousers.
Normally I’d grab him by the collar and refuse to set off until he put his perfectly good, breathable, Gore-Tex hardshell on. But this time I decided to let him learn. We toiled to the top of Cadair Idris. The rain got colder and more sideways as we ascended. The summit shelter was ankle-deep in slushy wetness, and by the time we planted our hands on the trig point, the man was soaked. Properly, wringing-out soaked. It’s credit to his fitness, decent base layers and non-stop consumption of brownie bites that he wasn’t hypothermic.
But – and this is the really annoying thing – I was soaked too. Despite wearing a proper waterproof jacket, and waterproof trousers, and gaiters underneath. But I made the fateful error of taking off my sodden gloves and putting them into my jacket pockets. Which are mesh. I was warm enough, but could feel the wet travelling into my mid layers, mingling with the rain that insisted on dripping down my nose and into my cleavage. When we got back to the car and stripped off our coats, he took a moment to stare at my soggy, steaming tummy. And then laughed. “You got wet. In your waterproof. Just like me.”
The rain got colder and more sideways as we ascended...