Mountain climbing

I'm going up Slieve Donard tomorrow. The last time was hysterically funny: I regaled my friends with entirely fictional stories about the Panther Clans of the Mourne Mountains (escaped from a travelling circus etc) before we got caught in a whole pile of mist right by a ravine. We hopped over the barbed wire fence into the trees, and one of my friends and I went on ahead a little, to see if we could carry on up that way. Until she screamed profanities and grabbed on to my shirt. I jumped a mile: but the Panther Clan turned out to be about 10 mountain sheep.

There's something about climbing mountains that I could become addicted to, in a small way. SD isn't exactly Everest.Still, for the complete amateur (aka, thinking Rocketdogs and a pair of cut offs equal appropriate mountaneering kit) there's something quite invigorating about using pretty much every muscle you possess to scramble up a giant, vertical muddy bank, whilst trying not to slip into that bloody great waterfall two foot away.

And then there's the times when you strain every muscle, trying not to see the guy casually washing his penis in aforementioned waterfall. I kid you not. Just sitting there, pouring rain, washing his manly parts...

It takes all sorts, I suppose