| Pilate’s
Lake 3rd September 2000 The Second Great Trek Report by Mice Click on the images to view them full size.
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Lead
once again (and late once again) by Monica Bruni, this year dressed in a
combat outfit rakish enough to make even the sheep go blind!! All of them!
And there were lots!
Sixteen we were in number plus a dog named Blossom, or was it Bonny? Being a month later the climb was slightly less hot and exhausting. The wind though quite as cutting and those noses without protection ( i.e. large ones like mine), got quickly scorched as did bare arms and an ankle here and there. You might remember our humbling experience of cursing the exactitudes of our ascent last year only to be stunned by a group of blind folk singing their way past us as we swore Everest could be nothing like this (and some, not I) were thinking of returning to the bar!!...well at almost the same spot this year where the weaker of our number were craving for knee massages and chocolate ( I got neither!), past us shot a man with one leg! Well, one leg, the other was a false leg of course but didn’t that give us courage!! and minds were collectively snapped out of chocolate craving and self pitying stupors and off we went again!! The bunch of sixteen ramblers soon began to stretch across the landscape pretty well in the order of the number of cigarettes a day each smoked but we did all manage to reach the lake about lunchtime. Crisps and choccy bars, beer and cheese, snoozing and shrimp spotting!! Yes this year we caught sight of the little devils and they were mating. Well so the warden said! If you look at the picture below you might well work it out for yourself. Perhaps they do it by some sort of telepathy or maybe at night because they certainly weren’t doing it like bunnies if you know what I mean. This year there wasn’t any snow to eat and slide down. Wardens abounded and strict control was affected over any dissident wanderers who deemed to get too close to mating rare pink shrimps. Only Bonny, or was it Blossom, managed to get into the water. Now this is enough to destroy millions of years of ecological balance (or so you would think the way the wardens reacted). Luckily the sharp retort of ‘Bonny!! Biscuit!!’ by her owner at least seemed to veer her away from a dense grouping of our little shrimps probably long enough to save them for another year. And so, gratified by such thoughts, we gathered up our crisp and choccy wrappings and made our way back down ( three hours up and as many down incidentally on account of knee ache) More sunburn and sore feet! All of it miraculously cured by lashings of beer and more crisps. Do it. Photos Copyright Michael Eldridge 2000 Back to "The Mouse and the Wolf"(A previous journey to Pilate's Lake)
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