Epic?

It's funny how the meaning of words gets changed by the way we use them. For example 'we had a absolute epic' ('we had a long day and now I'm tired'). An online dictionary defines an epic as 'an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero'. As I cannot compare my blog to the work of Milton in Paradise Lost and would not describe myself as a 'legendary hero', I can only conclude that I have never had an epic... But I have had some long days! Tower Ridge being one of them. Andy, Ben and I travelled up to Scotland in January to stay with friends and do some climbing. The weather was looking excellent and we knew the ridge would have good neve and not a lot of fresh snow, so gear would be easier to find and we could move quickly... I suggest leaving very early as I know the ridge can make for a really long day. But I'm told this is unneccessary and assured by Luke that it will take us 5 hours - a conservative estimate. Note to self: when aspirant guides suggest timings for routes, add a bit. This was possibly a bit of a big route to jump on considering that neither of us had climbed in winter for two years, but we knew it was within our ability. Luke had said the Douglas gap was the hardest bit...so when this proved to be a straightforward lead, I was thinking 'this is going to be easy'. However the most time consuming part of the day turned out to be route finding - despite being on a ridge! - and faf. About a third of the way up, we hit a bit of a wall, and I knew we were both having un-vocalised Mountain Rescue thoughts. We re-fuelled and assessed our options deciding to continue. We were relying on each other to lead and route find. We got benighted on the Eastern Traverse, which Andy led. As I followed him across, I reflected that it probably felt a lot less exposed than normal, as the only thing I could see was the snow and rock in front of me, illuminated by the small pool of light from my head torch. Not wishing to tackle Tower Gap in the dark, we knew we could continue traversing and avoid it - a decision which needed little discussion! So we quested on and eventually I popped out on the crest of the ridge. Andy continued up the final snow slope to the plateau and I cracked a smile for the first time in a few hours. Made it! All in all it took us nine hours on the ridge itself and we didn't get back to the house until 11pm. I concluded 'that was a long day and now I'm tired'...