I have managed to anticipate and track the Tamperers so that my 2013 year-end total continues to be the five unclimbed Marilyns on St Kilda. Mynydd Anelog is best climbed from the south using a little car park near the church. Once we had found somewhere to park, we were rewarded with fine summit views of Bardsey Island. It was great to meet everyone at the Marhof meet at Giggleswick and catch up on all the bagging gossip.
Sims remain my UK bagging target but with all unclimbed targets north of the border, my total inched along to 1586. Most of the year's total was achieved in two trips. At Easter, Tove and I waded through the deep snows on the Sims around Loch Earn. In the summer we had an excellent trip to Knoydart organised by Julie Brown. Lots of peaks were bagged, greatly facilitated by the local water taxi.
At Christmas 2012 we visited Colombia, where we trekked around the impressive mountains of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy. We missed out on the summit of Ritacuba Blanco by 100m in a fierce whiteout. Getting back down turned out to be a minor epic. However, it is a great trek and climb, I can thoroughly recommend it.
We continued our fascination with climbing volcanoes with a successful ascent of Mt. Cameroon. The summit was the only success, the trip was very badly led, complemented by uncertain security with seven French hostages taken by Al Qaeda elsewhere in Cameroon, a team member was robbed in a market, one hotel robbed at gunpoint the week before we arrived, and a major punch-up at the airport to get onto an over-booked Air France flight home.
Tove suffered further when we got home with a terrible infection of the leg following an insect bite. There was a swelling from her hip to her knee. As I say to my friends, I have been to Cameroon so you do not have to.
With the nightmare of the Cameroon trip in mind, it was a pleasant change to visit Slovenia and trek in the Julian Alps and climb Triglav. The summit ridge of Triglav is narrow and very dramatic. We had learned not to take our guide Ales too seriously. So we were caught out when he said 'Say hello to the Prime Minister'. Naturally I did not believe him and said 'Hi, if you are the Slovenian Prime Minister, then I am the British Ambassador', with my mate chiming in that he was the Duke of Lancaster. A surreal conversation then ensued. Turns out she was the Slovenian Prime Minister, whoops. I wonder what she will make of the real British Ambassador when she finally meets him.
