Wednesday 24 September 2014

Dalwhinnie Meet Report, 13-14 September 2014

Only five members attended; Ross and John arrived, separately, after spending some days beforehand, peak bagging.  Jan, Sarah and Martin L, drove up late Friday.  Weather forecast was good, but not quite as good as the prior few days which were wall-to-wall sunshine, whereas the two weekend days started with a low mist which burned off to 50% cloud cover, about mid-day. On Saturday, John began in earnest his tackling of the relative hills of Britain, getting four in the bag, including one which was accessible from the hut door.  Sarah tackled the Monadliath Munros after some ribbing about wasting a good weather day on such hills lacking in interest. Martin L had a 26 mile mega-day, cycling in to Strathossian (a long hard ride, I've done it myself to access the remote Corbett Leum Uilliem - so he might have to cycle it again if he goes on to do the Corbetts) to access the four Munros and Tops north of Ben Alder (the access to these Munros is more difficult following the closure of the Culra bothy); he was glad for the meal made for him of leftovers from the rest of the group.

Sunday brought similar weather and the dispersal of the group; John headed SW to begin the completion of his round of Munros in non-winter conditions (suceeded 15 September, on Bidean nam Bian, in, of course, classic pea soup conditions, with the cloudbase socked in at 950 metres). Ross and Jan headed West for a foray into the beautiful Knoydart area.  Sarah headed back home via an attempt on the Munros north of Blair Atholl, where the normally boggy moorland return path would be nice and dry after the long dry spell.