"The Only Thing That's Waterproof is Skin!"
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say it, but there was no time at which those words seemed more relevant. I’d just arrived back at the campsite after a testing adventure that had taken me to the summit of Britain’s highest mountain and back, Ben Nevis. Five and a bit hours earlier I’d set off, part of a group of five on a grey July Saturday morning. Soft rain and mist wove a dampening conspiracy around us, and long before we were halfway up, the land below had vanished entirely. But it had been today or never for me on this middle instalment of three mountains in three days in the Scottish Highlands. Two of us were much faster than the other three and our brief stops to wait for them were rapidly abandoned so that we could keep on moving and stay warm. At the summit, a huge cornice of grainy snow covered the edge of the deadly north face. We didn’t stay at the top for long, huddling among the stone ruins of an abandoned shelter and taking the obligatory summit selfies. On the way down, the zip on my coat broke, and for the rest of the descent I was dogged by sixty mile per hour rain charged gusts that turned me into a sail and quickly soaked me to the core.
“The only thing that’s waterproof is skin!” said James as he peered grimly into the rain out of what I can only describe as a one man teepee. “Tea? Sausage sandwich?” I gratefully accepted, before trudging off squelchily to the campsite laundry where just about everything I had worn was poured into an industrial sized tumble dryer. Even my rucksack and ahem, yes my passport that had inexplicably been with me on the hike went in as I sat in a chair and gradually felt my senses return. It might have been July, but nobody had remembered to tell the Scottish Highlands.
James was always resourceful on these hiking adventures. The much loved patriarch of a Clydebank family, we first met him on the West Highland Way ten years ago as we hiked the hundred odd miles from Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, to Fort William. A man who seemed bigger in stature than he actually stood, he was one of those people who emanated warmth and humour behind which you could sense was a quiet layer of hidden steel. A man who earned our respect without trying to. He was accompanied by several members of his family, including his daughter Karen, who’d taken it upon herself to watch over us like a guardian angel as we made our way north through some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. Each day we all finished at the same hostel or campsite where we would share stories of our adventures over a pint or three, and by the time we arrived in the streets of Fort William during a torrential downpour, the three of us that had started a week earlier had somehow snowballed into a group of twenty.
There were no beds at Fort William that night. We’d intended to sleep in our tents, but the campsite was flooded. A different year, but it was still July. After a lot of frantic searching, Karen appeared with the rescue plan. Alder and Anna, the young teachers from North Carolina we’d befriended and walked every step of the last two and a half days with, would be smuggled into the long since booked hotel room she and Louise were sharing, while Dave, Tom and I would sneak in with James. If James was at all disgruntled by the fact that he was about to share his long awaited hotel room with three people he’d only met a few days ago, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, he just grinned and poured the whisky. Such effortless kindness is a rare and special thing. James had it in abundance. And since that first adventure, he’s featured in each of the ones we’ve had in Scotland.
Three years later we did the hike again, this time in a Mediterranean style heatwave. But not in July - this time we were in Scotland in May. And somehow I persuaded Ali to come with me, on what was her first ever trip to Scotland. Once again, there was James, now almost in his seventieth year, always magically producing a hip flask full of single malt at the moment it was most needed. I wondered whether there was a lorry following us - or a boat during the very long section of the trail on the remote east bank of Loch Lomond - topping up his hip flask when the rest of us weren’t watching.
Last summer we were back in Scotland for the first time in five years, invited by Alder and Anna to join them on a long overdue reunion hike along the Great Glen. Afterwards, Ali and I trekked the Rannoch Moor section of the West Highland Way alone. Back in 2018 she’d decided to skip the testing haul across the huge open wilderness and regretted it ever since, while I was more than happy to follow that path for a third time. But it turned into yet another July afternoon in the Highlands when the heavens opened and obliterated the landscape. From start to end we were soaked by bullets from the sky, although at least this time the coats kept out the worst of it as we trod the boggy twelve miles across mountain and moor. On a fine day it’s a stunning walk, but in heavy rain it’s sheer purgatory with nowhere to throw in the towel and wait to be rescued by the bus or a taxi.
A couple of days later we met up with James and his wife Joanne who’d joined Karen to visit us at our waterfront pitch on the campsite beside the east bank of Loch Lomond, not far from their home. At least the rain mostly stayed at bay for once. We spent the time drinking tea and reminiscing about those wonderful shared adventures on the trail, and the day Karen and I hiked up to the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor, only to be surrounded by yet another thick veil of suffocating fog. Also in July. Catching up with friends like these was among the highlights of a road trip that we’ll never forget. It was a surprise though to hear that James no longer touched the whisky. Even a beer was politely refused when I dug a couple of cans out of the fridge.
Three weeks ago we learned that James had died suddenly while overseas on holiday with Joanne. A heart attack we were told. He was seventy-five. It doesn’t seem that old, and nor did James. Such a generous and unassuming man. The sad news took me back to the memory of that soaking wet hike across Rannoch Moor, when I smiled through the mist as I heard his well worn mantra speaking across the hills to me in that unmistakable Clydeside accent - “The only thing that’s waterproof is skin!” He’d have loved an afternoon like this. Slàinte James. This one’s for you.
My brother Dave made a video of the 2015 hike: youtu.be/LUjhj2ojeX0?si=1cOJLsAv2Qln-O8a
And despite the fact that his was so much better, I made one of the 2018 hike: youtu.be/Qjq47Wiyko8
"The Only Thing That's Waterproof is Skin!"
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say it, but there was no time at which those words seemed more relevant. I’d just arrived back at the campsite after a testing adventure that had taken me to the summit of Britain’s highest mountain and back, Ben Nevis. Five and a bit hours earlier I’d set off, part of a group of five on a grey July Saturday morning. Soft rain and mist wove a dampening conspiracy around us, and long before we were halfway up, the land below had vanished entirely. But it had been today or never for me on this middle instalment of three mountains in three days in the Scottish Highlands. Two of us were much faster than the other three and our brief stops to wait for them were rapidly abandoned so that we could keep on moving and stay warm. At the summit, a huge cornice of grainy snow covered the edge of the deadly north face. We didn’t stay at the top for long, huddling among the stone ruins of an abandoned shelter and taking the obligatory summit selfies. On the way down, the zip on my coat broke, and for the rest of the descent I was dogged by sixty mile per hour rain charged gusts that turned me into a sail and quickly soaked me to the core.
“The only thing that’s waterproof is skin!” said James as he peered grimly into the rain out of what I can only describe as a one man teepee. “Tea? Sausage sandwich?” I gratefully accepted, before trudging off squelchily to the campsite laundry where just about everything I had worn was poured into an industrial sized tumble dryer. Even my rucksack and ahem, yes my passport that had inexplicably been with me on the hike went in as I sat in a chair and gradually felt my senses return. It might have been July, but nobody had remembered to tell the Scottish Highlands.
James was always resourceful on these hiking adventures. The much loved patriarch of a Clydebank family, we first met him on the West Highland Way ten years ago as we hiked the hundred odd miles from Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, to Fort William. A man who seemed bigger in stature than he actually stood, he was one of those people who emanated warmth and humour behind which you could sense was a quiet layer of hidden steel. A man who earned our respect without trying to. He was accompanied by several members of his family, including his daughter Karen, who’d taken it upon herself to watch over us like a guardian angel as we made our way north through some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. Each day we all finished at the same hostel or campsite where we would share stories of our adventures over a pint or three, and by the time we arrived in the streets of Fort William during a torrential downpour, the three of us that had started a week earlier had somehow snowballed into a group of twenty.
There were no beds at Fort William that night. We’d intended to sleep in our tents, but the campsite was flooded. A different year, but it was still July. After a lot of frantic searching, Karen appeared with the rescue plan. Alder and Anna, the young teachers from North Carolina we’d befriended and walked every step of the last two and a half days with, would be smuggled into the long since booked hotel room she and Louise were sharing, while Dave, Tom and I would sneak in with James. If James was at all disgruntled by the fact that he was about to share his long awaited hotel room with three people he’d only met a few days ago, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, he just grinned and poured the whisky. Such effortless kindness is a rare and special thing. James had it in abundance. And since that first adventure, he’s featured in each of the ones we’ve had in Scotland.
Three years later we did the hike again, this time in a Mediterranean style heatwave. But not in July - this time we were in Scotland in May. And somehow I persuaded Ali to come with me, on what was her first ever trip to Scotland. Once again, there was James, now almost in his seventieth year, always magically producing a hip flask full of single malt at the moment it was most needed. I wondered whether there was a lorry following us - or a boat during the very long section of the trail on the remote east bank of Loch Lomond - topping up his hip flask when the rest of us weren’t watching.
Last summer we were back in Scotland for the first time in five years, invited by Alder and Anna to join them on a long overdue reunion hike along the Great Glen. Afterwards, Ali and I trekked the Rannoch Moor section of the West Highland Way alone. Back in 2018 she’d decided to skip the testing haul across the huge open wilderness and regretted it ever since, while I was more than happy to follow that path for a third time. But it turned into yet another July afternoon in the Highlands when the heavens opened and obliterated the landscape. From start to end we were soaked by bullets from the sky, although at least this time the coats kept out the worst of it as we trod the boggy twelve miles across mountain and moor. On a fine day it’s a stunning walk, but in heavy rain it’s sheer purgatory with nowhere to throw in the towel and wait to be rescued by the bus or a taxi.
A couple of days later we met up with James and his wife Joanne who’d joined Karen to visit us at our waterfront pitch on the campsite beside the east bank of Loch Lomond, not far from their home. At least the rain mostly stayed at bay for once. We spent the time drinking tea and reminiscing about those wonderful shared adventures on the trail, and the day Karen and I hiked up to the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor, only to be surrounded by yet another thick veil of suffocating fog. Also in July. Catching up with friends like these was among the highlights of a road trip that we’ll never forget. It was a surprise though to hear that James no longer touched the whisky. Even a beer was politely refused when I dug a couple of cans out of the fridge.
Three weeks ago we learned that James had died suddenly while overseas on holiday with Joanne. A heart attack we were told. He was seventy-five. It doesn’t seem that old, and nor did James. Such a generous and unassuming man. The sad news took me back to the memory of that soaking wet hike across Rannoch Moor, when I smiled through the mist as I heard his well worn mantra speaking across the hills to me in that unmistakable Clydeside accent - “The only thing that’s waterproof is skin!” He’d have loved an afternoon like this. Slàinte James. This one’s for you.
My brother Dave made a video of the 2015 hike: youtu.be/LUjhj2ojeX0?si=1cOJLsAv2Qln-O8a
And despite the fact that his was so much better, I made one of the 2018 hike: youtu.be/Qjq47Wiyko8