The Merrick

Date: 13/4/22	Age: 12
Height: 843m	Location: Galloway
Distance: 13.25km	Time: 4 hours
Geology: ordorvician greywacke	People: me, Dad

We started the walk from the car park. The weather was very cloudy, misty and overcast. The path followed a stream leading up to a series of waterfalls. There had been a lot of rain and the waterfalls were beautiful but the soggy path gave me wet feet. The first 45 minutes was quite an easy climb. Then we came to a bothy. It was dirty, grimy, wet and mouldy. I wouldn’t fancy spending a night in there. Next we entered a forest which had a carpet of moss. It looked like something out of a fantasy novel. The path became very steep here. As we came out of the top of the forest, the weather worsened and the mist descended. I had to wipe my glasses to see where I was going. My hair and clothes were damp and my feet were in a peat bog. Visibility was poor, we could only see a few metres ahead. The white had engulfed us. Continuing up onto the ridge we ascended our first hill – Ben Yellary. Dad had to get out his compass to ensure that we didn’t drift off the ridge. We had some celebratory fruit pastilles on the first peak; we ate quite a lot of the fruit pastilles throughout the walk, steadily munching through them. We kept climbing but could not see the peak. We were hungry and stopped for lunch. Little did we know that we were only five minutes from the peak. The wind whipped up on our descent allowing us to see the golden brown landscape of the surrounding hills. Typically, as we neared the end of the walk, the sun broke through the mist and the clouds disappeared. We were able to see a vast expanse of hills rolling as far as the eye could see. My knees hurt a little on the descent, particulary the forest section which was very steep and slippery. I fell on my butt in this section. I returned to the car with wet soggy feet.