The Mountain Hut

In the April of 1974 we were 17 years old and had just completed an Outward Bound wilderness training in the Chimanimani Mountains of Zimbabwe. Having never been active or sporty I had loved the challenge of the mountains, overnight hiking and carrying everything we needed for many days in the mountains.

Just before we boarded the bus to return to our homes and final year of school the camp leader, Mr Bailey, shared his final words of wisdom.

‘You will come back in the years to come, and you will want to do what you have done while you were here. But beware, you would have lost your fitness and all you will manage is a trip to the mountain hut where you will rest and look at the view and then go home afterwards’.

Almost as one we replied to Mr Bailey, ‘Oh NO, we won’t do that. We will walk far past the hut and sleep in the open under the stars. No hut or caves for us!’

In our three weeks of gruelling mountain trails we had not been allowed to sleep in any of the large caves and although we knew of the hut, we had never walked near it.

In the following 40 years I was able to return to the Chimanimani mountains on several occasions and hike, carrying all I needed, sleeping in a lightweight tent and occasionally in the well-appointed caves.

Then in 2017, after an absence of 4 years from Zimbabwe, we returned to the mountains. I had not been very active in the previous years, and in truth I struggled to walk up Bailey’s Folly to the mountain hut. Once there I dropped my pack and realised I could go no further. I sat and looked at the view.