Sunday 9 February 2014

insane

As a bit of a follow up to the rant I had about people calling me stupid (or inferring that, just read the other blog), because I'm a runner, I found myself using the same name tag to a few people this last august as I was up on Snowdon.

Imagine the situation, the cloud has been down for a good 24hours. The wind has got up over the past 12. The visibility is pretty much 10 metres from about half way up the mountain, its driving rain, and generally pretty nasty.
We were up there, full on proofs, lots of stuff on and still wet through and not particularly enjoying ourselves. Intelligent? Insane?

Well, I'd go for intelligent in terms of the type of clothes we were wearing, and the fact we were out in that weather... well, we didn't really have a choice. It was an assessment.

Yes, its the top of Snowdon, and yes, there is a train up it so I was expecting to see a few people wandering around the summit in clagged out conditions - no visibility at all. What I didn't expect to see was a large number of people wearing plastic bag macs, wandering around in what can best be described as "pumps" having walked up there.
Who in their right mind decides that they are going to wander up a mountain so woefully underprepared that it defies belief?
What is more, who does that, and then drags a small child up there as well? If the weather conditions are not particularly clement, and potentially going to get worse, what would possess you to even attempt it? And if you don't know if the weather is going to get better or worse... you really shouldn't be going up there in the first place.
Yes, there is a cafe. Yes there is a train. That doesn't make it a cunning plan to go up a hill with little to no preparation for significant amounts of weather.

No, I don't think they are "insane", or indeed "crazy".
I think they are stupid and irresponsible.

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