By noon the ridge was gone and so was every reason to hurry.

We had a list, as we always do. Two summits, a col, and back down by four for the bus. We got as far as the first cairn before the cloud came up the valley and quietly cancelled all of it.

Twenty metres of world

There is a particular silence in hill fog. Sound stops arriving from anywhere in particular. The world shrinks to a circle of wet grass and the back of your friend’s jacket, and the things you were worried about at breakfast have no way of reaching you.

We sat on our packs and ate the sandwiches early. That felt reckless. Nobody said anything for a while.

It is hard to be behind schedule when you cannot see the schedule.

Two people on a path through grass
Below the cloud line, on the way down, slightly disappointed that it was over.

What came off the list

Both summits. The col. The bus, which we missed, cheerfully. Also, for the better part of a day, the email I had been drafting in my head since Tuesday, and the slight ache of being a person with obligations.

The fog lifted at about five, just as we got to the road. The whole ridge came back, sharp and golden and entirely unbothered, as if to show us what we had missed. We looked at it for a minute and went to find a pub.