Day twenty-five - Thursday

Day started off with spectacular weather - walked in with Helen with not a cloud in the sky. Board round was packed from a very busy day yesterday. I'd like to write about who came into the hospital today but feel it wise to refrain - suffice to say it was the cause of stress and humour in equal measure! Sorry for being cryptic...

Jobs list was pretty long after the medical round, so straight away cracked on with getting some bloods done. In the middle I was summoned to the anaesthetic room to do a 12-lead ECG on a patient who had just been cardioverted - they were back in sinus rhythm, success! Back to the ward, took some more bloods and was just tidying up in the prep room when the crash buzzer went off - for the patient I had just bled! Correlation yes, causation hope not... Turned out they had collapsed shortly after I'd left but then a few minutes later were pretty much recovered and doing well. After that decided not to do any more bloods!

Tom jumped ship due to blazing sunshine outside, but I felt like I should stay after my day off yesterday. Nipped upstairs for some food then went along to the F1 teaching via video link from Aberdeen! Was on blood transfusions - very important topic, but the session was so incredibly dull I found it hard to concentrate. Even the novelty of having it streamed on a TV while the 4 of us were sat in a hospital miles away wore off after the third powerpoint slide of SHOT graphs. Finished at 1330, after which Helen left to do some shopping. I went back to the ward for about 30s before deciding to follow the other two's lead and try and capitalise on some fantastic weather in what remained of the afternoon. Headed back to the house and quickly hatched a plan to head down to Glen Coe and do Curved Ridge, a classic grade 2/3 scramble I'd wanted to do for ages!

Drove down in beautiful sunshine, blasting out Chili Peppers from the stereo, amazing! Parked up at Altnafeadh, left the car around 1500. Smashed the walk in, and before long I got stuck into the scramble. Was amazing rock in an incredible situation, the vast expanse of Rannoch Moor behind, and the towering sillhouette of Stob Dearg above, forming the impressive Buachaille Etive Mor, shepherd of the glen.

Stob Dearg, 1022m

Crowberry Ridge behind, the scramble just to the left

Looking back down, not a place for the faint hearted!

Mind blowing Rannoch Wall

The route overlooks the aweinspiring Rannoch Wall, an incredible face of vertical rock. I passed the only people I saw all day at this point, two women descending Curved Ridge after doing January Jigsaw, a Severe. Carried on up the ridge and before long reached the cairn marking the end of the route. Here I cut right, passing under the impressive East face of the Crowberry Tower before gaining the northern ridge and continuing all the way to the top, incredible exposure and a really thrilling scramble! Paused on the top, soaking up the exposure, before reversing ~20m back down to cut across the col to gain the mountain proper. From here continued up for a few minutes before popping out suddenly on the summit plateau, right next to the cairn, 1h20m after leaving the car. Fantastic! Views were amazing. Route was amazing. Weather was amazing. What a way to end my time in Fort William!

Rannoch Moor, awesome vistas 

Tasty scrambling!

What a view! If you look closely in the middle you can see the Ballachulish bridge

Quick refuelling with fruit bar and squash before launching into the descent down Coire na Tulaich. Ran the whole way down, scree running at the top at breakneck pace before slowing down slightly once I regained the proper path. Before long I was back on the home straight, running over the bridge and arrived at the car 1h50m after setting off, 30m descent - brilliant! Had the advantage of starting off at nearly 300m from the car park, so only 700m odd height gain/loss over the trip. Amazing thinking about where people in London go for an afternoon jog, when if you lived in Fort William and had 2 hrs free you could smash out Curved Ridge on the Buachaille!

Taken at 1635, contemplating the descent...

Taken at 1652, looking back at the descent and wondering quite how it went that fast!

In the Polo I headed back through Glen Coe, powering along to Otherside by RHCP, life seemed pretty good. Done a classic route in a speed smash'n'grab effort, driving in my own car down Glen Coe, just finishing a truly brilliant 4 weeks in Fort William and looking forward to the next stage of my elective adventure on Lewis!

Quick shower then onto Cobbs for the last of our Thursday evening tutorials, sampled the Northern Lights ale with a Scafell burger, like to think I'm representing the Lakes up north! Quick interlude home before returning to the hospital to watch The Imposter in the doctors accomodation, very strange/disturbing documentary, brilliant manipulation of viewers emotions though, whole view of the situation suddenly gets inverted half way through! Enhanced by Leffe and microwave sponge pudding. Final lift back to the house from Helen and chilled out. What a day. What a 4 weeks in Fort William. I'm gonna be sad to leave. It's made me think about what I want from where I live/work. Up here if you have a few hours off the most rugged mountains in the UK are literally on your doorstep, ready for the taking. Want to nip out and do Ledge Route on the Ben - OK. Drive down the staggering Glen Coe and smash out Curved Ridge - that's cool. Spot of cragging up Polldubh - yep. Definitely opened my eyes to what's possible. Maybe I'll move to Scotland one day?