A Kneed to be in the Mountains — Over The Scottish Hill

My Journey from Mountains to Knee Surgery and Back Again

It was 2008 in a Scottish Ambulance Service mess room. Bizarrely, I was doing a standing quad stretch and remarked to my colleague Ian, that I was struggling to get the same range of movement as usual. Ian shared my love of exercise so we mused that it could be the start of something arthritic. Seventeen years later, I am on week 3 after a total knee replacement. I’ll never get my ankle to touch my bum again on that leg but with good rehab, nutrition and a healthy dose of determination, a return to hiking, hill-walking, mountain walking and mountain guiding should be eminently achievable!

Knee osteoarthritis runs in the family on my Mum’s side. She always refused to consider knee replacements stating that ‘metal and plastic just don’t go together’. As always, she had a point but knee joints have come on leaps and bounds in recent years and the expected longevity of a replacement knee prothesis is now around 15 to 20 years. Not great if you are at the relatively young age of 40 when you need one but not half bad at 65!!

The saying ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it’ has worn well! My physio advised me that if I hadn’t just basically ignored that I had an arthritic knee and bashed on regardless then my knee would have deteriorated much much quicker. Movement helps with joint function and stiffness and strengthening the muscles around the knee (quads, hamstrings and calf) it also helps with support and cushioning. So even battering on through the mountains on rocky paths with steep descents, was, in its own way, helping me delay the progress of a deteriorating joint. Targeted gym work focussing on the aforementioned quads et al and also helped me later on. I have a lot of good people around me and one of my mountain friends, Emmanuelle regularly encouraged me to use the gym more often. I did finally heed her wise words and this helped. A collateral benefit was minimising the natural decline in muscle mass and strength that takes pace as we mature. Scarily, this can begin in 40 year olds. It’s known as sarcopenia and the mere mention of the word makes me shiver! Being quite a proud and ok ….. my friends would say ‘vain’ person, I have always kept myself fit and love a bit of muscle tone so to think of it disappearing is really quite shocking to me!! HOWEVER, as I’ve mentioned this can be minimised if you work at it.

So…………..my dodgy knee very very slowly continued on its inevitable journey to the hospital incinerator. Not before I’d had a ball though. In 2011 I completed 200 miles of the Camino de Frances (a pilgrim’s walk to Santiago de Compostela) with my close friends Debi and Gill. At the ripe old age of around 50, we still, averaged around 20 miles a day with exceedingly heavy packs. We hadn’t quite discovered the idea that you shouldn’t carry any more than 15% of your bodyweight on your back. I reckon ours weighed around 14-15KG and the max we should have been carrying was around 10KG I did, however, find a little snippet about how the Romans marched where it stated that they rested every third day. We incorporated that into our schedule but the hard fact is that in 10 days of walking, we walked 200 miles. It wasn’t easy by any means, especially as we were hindered by our ridiculously heavy rucksacks. There were tears, lost toenails, blisters and swollen bunions but more importantly there was a shared sense of purpose, raucous camaraderie and some beautiful memories as I think the picture below captures quite nicely!

In 2015, I climbed Ben Nevis for the second time. This time by the tourist path rather than the more exciting Carn Mor Dearg arête. I was accompanied by my friend’s daughter Kym and my 9 year old Labradoodle Logan who literally was as fit as a butchers dog! This was Kym’s first Munro! What better than the biggest of them all for the first go. They both did supremely well and we got some views from the summit very surprisingly as it is notorious for being in clag

Not put off by ridiculously heavy rucksacks, I started doing some summit camping. After keeping a watchful eye on the weather and ensuring that the conditions will be good (not blowing a hoolie ) it is perfectly possible to spend a wonderful night on the top of a shapely summit with 360 degree views and to experience sunrise, sunset and possibly the same posturing of the moon, and if you’re really lucky, a temperature inversion to boot! I had by this time learned how to pack my rucksack properly by my first outing , however I had my 37KG Logan with me who needed fed and a blanket or two for the tent. It was October after all. I remember the profanities I uttered whilst making my way up the steepest part of the Corbett with Logan looking at me, startled, as if it was directed at him. I did reassure him that he was a good boy and my ire was directed at the rucksack which was threatening to submit to gravity! We made it to the summit of Meall Lighiche (peak of the doctor) in time for sunset and had a fairly comfy night together in the tent despite the appearance of frost in the early morning. I was glad I’d lugged these blankets up for the boy!! Phone cameras weren’t great in 2015 so apologies for the pic quality but you get the gist!

The serrated ridge of the AonachEagach behind us

And so I plodded on…..It wasn’t until 2019 that the arthritis really started to kick in with a vengeance. With a few friends and acquaintances we climbed Slioch ( a spear) near Kinlochewe. It was a longer walk than usual. Close to 12 miles overall. It was a painful walk and for one of the few times in my hill-walking career, I was at the coo’s tail. Neither my ego nor my self esteem was very chuffed with this but I kept going to the summit and endured the torturously steep descent. The torture wasn’t anything to do with the exposure just an unrelentingly, aching knee joint. As we reached the lower slopes, the faster walkers pushed on with the exception of my friends Lynne and Johnnie, who insisted on waiting on me despite my protests to the contrary. Back at the pub we were staying at, I was glad to get the social niceties, food and drink over with in the pub, retire to my room, soak in the bath and lick my wounds. Johnnie perching on the snow!

The decline continued, along with my pace. I couldn’t fully extend my leg so developed an interesting gait and the leg became bowed. I had always been a bit bandy but now if I had been able to indulge in my other sporting love of football, the devastating ‘nutmeg’ would have been an easy task for my opponents! Undeterred, I decided to book onto a Mountain Leader Training Course. It was always something I had swithered about doing for years. My hesitance was borne out of a worry that if I climbed mountains as a profession, it may take a smidgeon of enjoyment out of it. I needn’t have worried. The course was amazing! I had done many excellent courses during my Scottish Ambulance career but this one felt like ‘coming home’!. There were several very young men on the course but also a lovely lady (Emmanuelle) who was the same age as me. She, however, had very straight legs and was a lot faster than me. Coo’s tail again for me but I just got on with it. I managed everything that was expected of me and learned that the difference between macro and micro navigation is vast and I was gonna have to do some serious consolidation if I wanted to proceed to the assessment course. That meant many more mountain trips so I wasn’t complaining. Emmanuelle and I undertook many trips together for this purpose.

By early 2023 I’d had enough of my knee. Every step was painful to some degree so I had to do something about it. I knew getting a replacement was best left as long as possible so after seeing an online advert for someone called The Knee Mentor, based in Scotland, I thought I’d give it a bash. The @kneementor ethos is around giving people with knee problems a new lease of life through the use of a brace which supports the knee whilst targeted exercises strengthen the muscles around it. This was a revelation. The pain diminished, my supporting muscles strengthened and I have no doubt whatsoever that I wouldn’t have been physically capable of passing my Mountain Leader Assessment course without this intervention. And as the pics show, the wearing of it sometimes led to it being discarded on another day!

After successful completion of the mountain leader course came the acquisition of a website and a business with the moniker; Over the Scottish Hill. It was a nod to my diminishing youth, but suggested that I could still get over them and whilst indicating my area of operation.

Business was slow as I’m not the greatest at marketing myself but throughout 2024 and early 2025 I had good feedback on the work I did do and have a returning client and friend (Liz) for many private guiding outings and navigation training. Dog walks sometimes too! In the summer of 2024 I was invited by Julia Hartley of Guided Outdoor Adventures: https://guidedoutdooradventures.co.uk a company who advertises, as the name suggests, using qualified guides around the UK. This helped raise my profile.

Still the knee deteriorated. The brace had helped immensely for 2 years but bone on bone arthritis is likely to necessitate a knee replacement at some point. I mulled this over whilst planning and then walking another Camino. This time the Camino de Ingles in the north of Spain. There were 4 of us this time as another good friend, Lynne joined us. Lynne was also a podiatrist (now retired) which meant we had two ex-paramedics and a podiatrist in our team. What could possibly go wrong! For me, it was brutal, absolutely, undeniably, brutal! Twelve miles a day, on average, for 6 days with a 10kg rucksack, did not enamour my scraping bone ends at all! The girls were very patient with me when I asked for a knee break. I only took a minute to flex and extend my knee, but these stops were frequent. I could sense their frustration which was understandable. I had said that if I was really toiling I would jump a bus to the next destination and wait on them but bus stops were very few and far between and anyway my stubborn nature and capacity for tolerating being uncomfortable, the mainstay of many a mountaineer and long distance walker, kept me plodding on. At one of our destinations on the eve of the longest daily mileage, I announced to the girls that I was going to leave a couple of hours before them and I would rendezvous with them around half way. My thinking was that they get peace to do their own pace without constant knee breaks and I would have a morning of no pressure to keep up. Plus, I could rest my knee whilst waiting on them. This necessitated a walk through country lanes and paths in the dark but hey that’s what head torches are for. It worked pretty well but at our destination the following evening, I was verbally set upon whilst we replenished our burned calories in a lovely Spanish square! ‘YOU need a knee replacement’ was the firm and uncompromising declaration! By this time, with a swollen left calf which was having to compensate for my weakened right leg, I had to agree and looked into booking an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon I had consulted before, right there and then!

And these were the lighter rucksacks! My brace bulks mine out

Fast forward to now……..January 2026. I’m now almost 6 months post total knee replacement (TKR). If you are confused, it’s because I started writing this blog 3 weeks post TKR then abandoned it. It’s amazing how busy you are when recovering! Between exercising 3 times a day, icing in between times and eating like a horse to get lots of protein down me to help heal my wound, the time soon flies in!

The hard work was well worth it. I had excellent extension straight after the operation thanks to the surgeons work. So no more bent knee and funny walk! I increased my flexion (bend) by hiring a stationery recumbent bike and gradually pushing the saddle nearer and nearer the front of the bike until it was as close as it would go. It was painful or at least uncomfortable doing this but again, very worth it. I became obsessed with measuring my flexion daily, even buying a goniometer which is a plastic protractor type device that physiotherapists use.

One of the hardest tasks to perform is walking downstairs. Initially, you ascend and descend using the following maxim: good one to heaven, bad one to hell. It works brilliantly with a recovering knee but not where you you want to be as it means taking one step at time. Taking the first step down with the good leg is a scary leap of faith as this puts maximum pressure on the shiny new knee. Once that was achieved I knew I was on the home straight.

I have since been up a Corbett and a nearby Munro that I had never got around to doing. These were achieved in good time. There is a formula for estimating hill-walking time called Naismith’s Rule. It adds time for walking uphill to a to a base rate for flat walking. By its definition, a fit hill-walker (Naismith was fit) would be capable of walking at a pace of 5 km (3 miles) an hour and able to climb 300 metres of ascent in half an hour. I haven’t achieved that for a long time so was delighted that I was faster for both mountains.

Sitting, cooried into the rocks, on the summit of a freezing, windblown, wet, Conachcraig looking out on the plateau and nearby peaks, made me happy as a pig in poo! (below)

‘We have the technology, we can rebuild you’! Some of my generation will remember this! I am lucky. My operation worked out well and I put the work in but I am grateful to all those who encouraged me, cajoled me, supported me and bluntly told me to ‘just get it done’! You all know who you are! One of you is tragically no longer here but part of your legacy will drive me to push forward and achieve all my goals in 2026.

Knee surgery or osteoarthritis isn’t necessarily the end of mountain walking, In most cases it can be a new beginning.