The High Country in October
By the third morning the ridge had stopped feeling like a place I was visiting. The frost lifted off the grass in thin sheets, and the only sound was my own boots and, far below, a stream I never saw.
What the map left out
The borrowed map was ten years old and optimistic about water. Two of the springs it promised were dry; the third ran clear and so cold it hurt to hold. I carried an extra litre after that and never once regretted the weight.
Most of walking is deciding, over and over, to keep walking.
The quiet after September
October belongs to the people who stayed. The huts were shuttered, the signposts a little crooked, and for two nights I shared a clearing with nobody at all. I slept badly and happily.
I came down on the fourth afternoon with sore knees and an unreasonable fondness for instant coffee. Next year, the same ridge, one week earlier.