A weekend in the mountains
I almost cancelled. The forecast on Thursday showed rain for Saturday, and I had plenty of excuses: a loose tooth in the car rack, a long week, a fridge that needed clearing out. But by Friday evening the map was updated to "partly cloudy," so I threw a pack together and drove up after dinner.
The trailhead car park was empty when I arrived at first light, which meant the first hour and a half were mine alone. September in the hills is a different world from July: the air has a cold edge before ten in the morning, the bracken is starting to turn, and the light comes in at a low angle that makes everything look older and quieter than it does in summer. I walked at a pace that let me notice things — a small tarn I'd walked past twice before without seeing, a section of old stone wall running straight up a slope with no obvious purpose, a family of wheatears working their way along a ridgeline ahead of me.
By mid-morning the path had steepened and the clouds had broken apart in the way they sometimes do after rain, leaving behind a washed brightness that's hard to describe. I stopped for a long time on the summit and ate my sandwiches and didn't think about much. That's what I go for, I suppose — not the exercise, not the views, though both are real, but that particular quality of not-thinking that a long climb and a wide view seem to produce.
On the way down I met a retired teacher from the next county who was doing the same loop in the other direction. We talked for twenty minutes about nothing in particular — the path conditions, a pub at the bottom she recommended, a bird she'd seen earlier that she couldn't place. It was the best conversation I'd had in weeks, which probably says something.
I was back at the car by early afternoon, tired in the right way, with mud on my boots and a headache I hadn't noticed arriving that had quietly gone. The drive home was slow. I didn't mind.