We haven’t had much of a summer in scotland this year so when scorching temperatures of 24 degrees were forecast for the Highlands, and with me due up at the house build on Monday, I decided to make the most of the weather window and sleep up a mountain on the way to Cuil.   
It turned out warm, but very windy and during an enforced stop at Duck Bay to sit out a road closure due to a serious multiple vehicle crash, I sat and watched the white horses racing across the loch. When they reached the shore they were cruelly intercepted by eight men on jet skis. The massed hordes had seen the weather forcast and headed up Loch Lomondside for some tranquility, a nice view and a barbecue and met with nose to tail traffic, the roar of jet skis and nowhere to park. The people didn’t venture far from the cars though, and a short walk past chalets and a wedding found me a secluded spot for a swim where rhododendrons growing right down on the shore like mangroves, roots and limbs twisted into the corse sand, and forming dark caverns on the beach where I could forget the traffic jam and the jet skis. 

.
The road reopened at last but the wind was undiminished. On the way back to the car I put out a fire of smoldering clothes and paperwork at the loch edge. There were hundreds of bank statements all belonging to one person, clothes and other personal items lit and then buried in a pile of sand. All within 50 yards of the bussling hotel. No one else seemed at all bothered by the smoldering pile and me filling carrier bags with water to put it out. Eventually I left for Cuil, having reported it to the Police in case it was the key to a heinous crime or something. 

  
As I drove north, I thought through spots to stay. All my planned places had been hilltops and that wasn’t going to be possible in a howling gale in my bivvy bag. As I approached Glencoe I remembered the hidden valley, a steep gorge woodland leading upward into a seemingly impenetrable mountain massif which opens and levels out into a calm and sheltered glen. It was where Glencoe’s former residents would take their cattle in times of danger to hide them.
I parked and headed down the track to the bridge, the granite of the first of the Three Sisters  glowing a fierce orange in the setting sun. I passed a man and his two teenage sons heading down from a day in the hill looking very well toasted. 

.
The mountains are looking at their loveliest at the moment, with the heather in full bloom and casting whole hillsides in purple. After crossing a bridge over the steep-cut gorge of the river Coe the path climbs up through twisted oak and birch woodland growing precariously on the gorge side and on a vast mound of huge boulders that block the view of the fertile valley beyond. 

.
It was darker in the woodland and in my keeness to gain height, and with my eyes on the hills rather than the glen, I somehow lost the path as it crossed the river. I stayed on the right hand side of the river and gained height scrambling over moss-covered boulders, using thin birch trees for hand holds and trying not to break my leg, be stranded for the night and not discovered until husband raised the alarm when I didn’t return home the next evening. 

  
Eventually, though, my scrambles led to the valley itself and an amazing place. Lost in time and an escape from the real life of house building preoccupations and to-do lists. It was nearly dark by the time I’d decided on the most sheltered spot, rolled out my bivvy and clambered inside. 

.
It was the first night for a while I hadn’t drifted off to thoughts of the house build. But that’s probably because I didn’t drift off at all. The wind howled across the valley in waves. Sending all the trees into little fits and trembles and building the anticipation in my little sleeping bag for when the wind would hit the birch tree perched precariously on the top of the Boulder overhanging my sleeping spot. 

  
We may not have bears and wolves in our woods in Scotland but it’s amazing how a dark night and wild wind and a little sleeping bag below a big Boulder can conjure all sorts of monsters. I suppose it’s one way of distracting oneself from a needy house build project.