The Hidden Valley, Glen Coe – Richard, London

The Hidden Valley gets its unique name from a river which flows from the snowy summit of a mountain, and then dives steeply into the valley beneath. The sight of the river cutting through the rocky valley is immaculate, the three mountains with two valleys cutting through them are called the three sisters.

  The start of this hike up the hidden valley was enchanting. It had the scent of a fresh humid flora, just like forests in Malaysia. Its trees, not too cramped together, with soft patches of compost between them, bursting out with green-filtered light. The moist moss beside the path allowed slugs to thrive in abundance. An occasional patch of bilberries grew side by side. Later on, the trees grew further away, but boulders, coated in a green blanket of moss, accompanied the path. For a short while the valley turned into a steep U, a sheer cliff apparent on the left side. The path was precarious. Sometimes both path and boulder would overlap, and involve brief portions of rock climbing. After twists and turns on the sketchy path, we arrived at the tranquil river that came down from the hidden valley. The sounds of the slow peaceful gurgling water flowing down pebbles gave me joy, making me bounce around mossy boulders with satisfaction. The air, bathed with the peaceful surroundings, persuaded nearly everything to live a happy undisturbed life. But we had to carry on in our adventure, so we hopped across the river and sped up the smooth granite rocks, which had little nooks enabling a swift climb.

Shortly, some large pebbles guided us into a vast valley which led directly into an iced-tipped mountain with a misty summit. By this point I was ambitious, thinking, since we reached this point quickly, it wouldn’t be too long until we stood on the summit looking over the valley. The valley, coated in half dead grass, looked pale while the summit looked rocky and ice cold. Climbing the hill was an arithmetic sequence of footsteps and the clanking of the steel pot. However, the river soon became inaccessible, for it started to sink beneath the grass like a U shape and pebbles were rarely sprinkled into the middle of the river. I felt as if I was embarking on an exciting adventure, with many more things and new objects to overcome. The air got cooler as the path guided us away from our good old friend, diagonally to the right-hand side of the valley. We added clothing layers; the sight of the snow peak drifting towards us. 

  We cut across the valley onto the mountain, the snow visible in more detail. The air was windier, hissing across our ears. My face felt icier the higher the altitude was. Then, eventually, we had to climb the slippery ice. I haven’t encountered ice many times in my life, and so it captured my attention. The feeling of the ice was shocking, contrary to my expectation of a smooth powdery substance. Instead, it was as big as water droplets, rough (like a school principal) and slippery (like every dad’s mood)  as there were bigger gaps between individual ice droplets. 

I experienced a few sketchy and precarious slips, triggering my fear (evolved by my ancestors, a brain signal to halt unnecessary risks) of slipping from the snow and falling cleanly onto the bottom of the valley (although in reality, this situation was completely safe). Slowly my fear was uncontrollable, paralysing myself along with my brother.

Since it was our first encounter with snow, my dad took me and my brother’s opinion seriously, understanding that my bravery was not cultivated and matured enough, along with our experiences and rules of thumb on the snow, and so we decided to turn around, not reaching the summit of the mountain. Some part of me must have felt guilty, but my fear would have stayed with me to the summit, so I went down with only a little regret. But, it was beautiful scenery, glancing down the valley, so I must admit that we were all still very happy.