Climbing a mountain

Hello!

I just realised that I haven't blogged in ages! I thought I would let you know what I have been up to recently! I had been spending time in a lovely cottage in the north of Scotland. The weather was pretty good so there was lots of time for walks! I'm going to write about when I climbed a mountain!

The mountain that we climbed was called Stac Polliadh and it looked a bit daunting from the bottom but we decided to give it a go. It was quite an easy mountain to climb but as we got nearer to the top, we were hit by very strong winds. We carried on carefully climbing the rocky track up to the summit but the wind was getting stronger and stronger! When I stood up at the top of the mountain, I was hit with two contrasting emotions: pride and terror! The pride was because I had made it to the top! There were stunning panoramic views and I felt a real sense of achievement! The terror was there because the wind was so unbelievably strong, I was actually frightened of being blown off! I clung on to a rock and bent down because this made it easier. We didn't stay at the top for long because it was so windy! We began our descent which was trickier that anticipated, but we made it down to the bottom. The reason I have shared this story with you is because recently I read a quote that instantly made me think of this mountain.

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves"

Obviously this quote can be applied to anything not just to mountains, but it made me realise that it would have been really easy to turn back. It would be easy to give up and walk back down the mountain. We didn't. We kept on going and battled through the strong winds at the top. To do this I think we all needed to conquer any feelings of terror inside of us. This quote can be applied to many things in life. For example, if you are working towards an exam and have a mountain of revision to do, it is not the work that you are conquering but the feeling inside you, telling you to stop.

Some food for thought...