Ulog #6: A walk to Dumyat, in memory of a good friend

This was a very special hillwalk – a memorial walk for a good friend of mine, Alison Fox, who tragically lost her life in a storm earlier this year, while out walking on her favourite hill, Dumyat.

Alison on Dumyat, her favourite hill

About 60 people gathered at the foot of Dumyat (pronounced "Dum-aye-at"), near Stirling, to walk to the summit. It's not a difficult walk, as the summit elevation is just 418m, but on a clear day it affords sweeping views of the Wallace Monument, the River Forth and the Ochil hills.

Photos of Alison on the summit of Dumyat would regularly appear on my Facebook feed – about once a week. As a registered blind person, Alison was unable to drive, and Dumyat was close to where she lived. Yet despite the problems with her eyesight, Alison had climbed all 282 of Scotland's Munros (mountains over 3000 feet) and Corbetts (mountains over 2500 feet), using public transport, lifts from friends and hitchhiking.

Alison was also a hillwalk organiser with her local Meetup hillwalking group, and she loved indoor climbing and bouldering. We used to go climbing together, and she always made sure that we took photos of each other on the wall, to post on Facebook. The photos were often on my Facebook feed before I'd got back home.

Alison on the climbing wall.

Alison's climbing ability was remarkable, given her vision problems. She loved entering climbing contests, and tried to persuade me to enter them too. I didn't think I was good enough, but Alison's philosophy was that the taking part was much more important than the result. One of her proudest moments was competing in ParaClimb 2017. She was happy to come third in her category, out of three entrants.

Alison (centre, red tshirt) at ParaClimb 2017, pictured in the Scottish Mountaineer. Photo used with kind permission of Mountaineering Scotland.

I never asked Alison about her job situation. I knew that she had a university degree, and I suspected that her vision impairment made it difficult for her to hold down a full-time job. But she was a passionate volunteer. Her various volunteering stints included: organising hillwalks, teaching English to immigrants, working on the Great Tapestry of Scotland, organising "Boccia" (a ball game) tournaments for people in wheelchairs, and monitoring and collecting tickets at festivals including the Aye Write literary festival, and at many sporting events, including the Commonwealth Games and various rugby matches.

She was the kind of person who loved meeting people and hated staying indoors.

Which may explain why she took the fateful decision to go for a walk up Dumyat on March 1st, during the terrible winter storm known as the "Beast from the East". Alison posted on Facebook that day, expressing surprise that another Meetup group had posted a big hillwalk for that weekend, given the weather conditions.

Shortly after that, she posted that all her volunteering had been cancelled for the next few days. It was her last ever Facebook post.

With all her volunteering cancelled, she must have decided to go for a walk. There was no public transport running, and few cars on the roads. So she decided to climb up the hill she'd climbed so many times before, and knew so well. Dumyat is just a couple of miles north of Stirling city centre, near the university – hardly a remote hill. Usually it's busy with day-trippers and dog walkers, but few people would have been out walking that day.

Alison called the emergency services sometime between 2 and 3pm. I have been unable to find out why she called them, but my guess is that she fell and lost her glasses. This might explain why she was unable to give them her exact location.

The Ochils Mountain Rescue Team were out searching for her in blizzard conditions until about midnight.

Members of the Ochils Mountain Rescue Team paid their respects to Alison at Dumyat yesterday.

None of Alison's friends knew that she was missing until the following day, when it was reported on the BBC news. When a friend messaged me with an attachment of the news report, I initially thought it was a sick joke and that his account had been hacked. It was hard to believe that such an experienced hillwalker could be missing on such a small, easy hill, despite the awful weather conditions.

I had been out walking myself on that terrible evening, but only in the city. I couldn't get my car out of the garage due to the snow, and I had to walk a couple of miles to visit the flat I rent out. The driving easterly wind was so bitterly cold that I had to put on my mountaineering balaclava and big leather winter mountaineering gloves.

Alison's body was found on the afternoon of March 2nd, the day after she'd set out on her walk.

A lunchtime gathering

Yesterday would have been Alison's 52nd birthday. It was a very warm, slightly overcast day, and there was a benign, friendly feeling on the hill as about 60 of us gathered on the summit to have lunch and celebrate Alison's life.

Me with friends on Dumyat yesterday.

It was hard to imagine that hill in blizzard conditions, although the brief video footage taken by the Ochils Mountain Rescue team during their search on skis for Alison on that fateful night gives an idea.

A donations page set up in memory of Alison for the Ochils Mountain Rescue Team has raised £1,500 so far.

Alison was no saint, but she was a really special person who achieved a lot in her life, and through many ups and downs had learned to appreciate the importance of community, friendship and helping others. That was her legacy to me, and many others.