Redemption on the Reckoning Hill: Give That Grudge Mountain Another Go

Every hillwalker worth their ortovox has a grudge mountain. You know the one. It lurks in your memory like a bad pint — the day the mist swallowed the view at 400 metres, the midges arrived in biblical numbers, your boots rubbed raw by the third km, and you swore, standing on a sodden cairn with your hands in your armpits, that you'd never bother again.

I've got mine. A dreich June afternoon on a certain Corbett that shall remain nameless, mostly because I'm planning to go back and I don't want it reading this. Zero view, zero joy, one very grumpy descent. I wrote it off for years.

Then I went back. And it was one of the best days I've had on a hill in a decade.

The Hill Didn't Change. You Did.

Here's the thing about a bad mountain day: the mountain almost never caused it. Hills don't have moods. What you actually experienced was a collision of circumstances — weather, fitness, time pressure, hunger, company (or lack of it) — and the summit just happened to be standing there when it all went wrong.

Which means the rematch is never really against the hill. It's against the day you had. And you get to stack the odds this time.

Think about what's changed since your first attempt. Maybe you're fitter now, and that relentless pull that nearly broke you will feel like a warm-up. Maybe you've got better gear, better navigation skills, better judgement about when to turn back. Maybe you've simply walked enough hills since then to know that a cloudy summit isn't a personal insult.

Planning the Redemption Mission

If you're going to settle scores, do it properly.

Pick your window, then pick a backup. Check the forecast obsessively — not just rain, but cloud base. A hill that disappointed you in the clag deserves a crack on a day when the tops are clear. Have a lower-level alternative ready in case the weather turns, so you're not forcing a repeat out of stubbornness.

Go in a different season. If the midges destroyed you in July, go in October. If snow put you off, try late spring. The same route in a different month is effectively a different hill — different light, different wildlife, different character entirely.

Change the approach. Coming at it from the other side, or making a proper ridge day of it instead of the bog-standard up-and-down, resets your expectations. Some hills are genuinely dull by the standard route and superb by the quiet one.

Bring better company — or none. A grudge day shared with a mate who's never been there is a gift: you get to watch someone else enjoy what you missed. Alternatively, go solo and at your own pace. Either way, break the pattern of the original outing.

Manage the fuel. Half the misery of a bad hill day is self-inflicted. Proper breakfast, proper lunch, snacks you actually like. It sounds trivial. It is not trivial.

The Confessions

Ask around any walking club and the grudge list comes flooding out. A friend of mine nearly gave up on the Carneddau entirely after a whiteout slog that ended in a car park argument. He returned two winters later on a blue-sky day, saw the whole of Snowdonia laid out to the horizon, and now names it among his favourite ranges. Another swore off a popular Lake District fell after queueing behind forty other walkers in drizzle — she went back at dawn on a weekday in November and had the summit to herself.

The common thread? Nobody regretted the rematch. Even the ones who came back down and thought "yep, still not for me" reported a strange satisfaction in closing the account. A hill you've deliberately written off twice is a decision. A hill written off once is just a bad afternoon.

When Not to Go Back

A quick word of balance. If your bad day involved genuine danger — a navigation scare, a slip, a real wobble — the calculus is different. Redemption missions can be a healthy way to rebuild confidence, but only when you actually want to go, not when you feel obliged to prove something. And if the hill itself was simply dull? That's allowed too. Not every summit owes you a view. Some of them are just big grassy lumps, and no amount of sunshine will change that.

But if your grudge is built on weather, timing or a bad mood — the most common culprits by miles — then that hill is sitting there with unfinished business, and so are you.

The Verdict

There's a particular pleasure in standing on a summit that once defeated your enthusiasm, in perfect conditions, and thinking: there you are. I knew you had it in you.

So dig out that entry in your logbook with the grudging one-liner. Check the forecast. Pick a crisp autumn morning or a long June evening. And give your least favourite mountain the day it deserved the first time round.

Worst case, you get a walk. Best case, you get your hill back.