Spring Bank Holiday Meet, 23-27 May 2014 at Forest Way bunkhouse, Inverlael.

Seven members made their way North on Friday, overnighting at the independent hostel at Slochd; Dianne and Martin climbed a Corbett to the East of Dromochter summit, en route.

On Saturday, Jake and Chris climbed the Corbett “Breabag”; Sarah climbed Ben Dearg and two of the adjacent Munros; Ross climbed two Grahams in Strath Connon; some members finished the day at various tea shops.  John re-joined the group again having traversed the Ben Mor Coigach group in a mixture of low cloud and sunshine and having mopped up all of the remote Northern Grahams over the intervening fortnight since the Glen Etive meet.  One of the ridges provided about 2 km of scrambling opportunity along a narrow airy ridge.

Sgurr an Fhidhleir Buttress (left), from Ben Mor Coigach
 

Sunday was beset by low cloud.  Dianne, Jan and “Cam” the dog navigated around three of the Fannich Munros in very low visibility.  John climbed the Graham Ben an Eoin in similar conditions (on a “size for irk” ratio, one of the most irksome Grahams, being beset by extremely arduous terrain underfoot).  

Sign at start of access to Ben an Eoin!

 

Jake and Chris had a long day climbing the challenging Beinn Dearg Corbetts in the Fisherfield Forest.  Martin and Sarah climbed on the Ardmair buttresses but were restricted on route choice by the weepage down many of the routes.

Monday, Jake and Chris set off back home with a view to climbing a Corbett off the side of Drumochter Pass. John climbed another Graham, Meall Dubh (“black hill”, an appropriate name for the peat and the socked-in cloud!). Ross part-cycled his way to two Grahams beside Ben Wyvis – a long day with an arduous peaty moorland crossing to the second one and back.  Martin and Sarah climbed a challenging ridge (also managed by “Cam” the dog (84 equivalent years old now, poor old fella)), up on to Cona Mheall and round onto Am Faochagach, involving a tricky river crossing at the end and suffering torrential downpours in the latter stages.  Having had a demanding day on Sunday, Dianne and Jan visited the Inverewe gardens, near the coast, experiencing glorious sunshine!

Climbing meet report, Wednesday, 14 May 2014.

Eeeeh, some dry weather, at last. Three people attended at Shepherds Crag, Borrowdale; “Adam” and “Delight Maker” were climbed in fine weather.

Glen Etive Meet Report, 9-11th May 2014

Eight members attended. After an inauspicious start of rain pattering on the hut roof on Saturday morning and hence a relatively late rise, members got out in various groups to do various objectives, amongst occasional light showers, which had the bonus of providing some very vivid rainbows when the sun shone through chinks in the cloud.  Jake and Chris tackled a compact group (rare) of three Corbetts near Loch Ailort, with a lot more descent and re-ascent between peaks than perhaps they had anticipated.  Ross and Jan took on a pair of Grahams near Inchree and, following the guide book, took their choice of “any of the streams through the forest”; unfortunately they chose one of the several streams other than the only one which leads without purgatorial effort up on to the desired ridge.  Sarah, Martin and Johnny went for Ben Starav and its tops but, instead of climbing back up from the distantly outlying top at 918 metres, they opted to descend the West ridge and then had a long hard tramp around the “interminable” loch shore. John bagged a brace of Grahams at the foot of Glencoe, without incident; these gave magnificent views up the Glencoe valley, through the arch of one of the most complete and vivid rainbows he has ever seen.

Sunday; Johnny went directly home with a gammy knee.  Ross, Jan and Sarah climbed the two Grahams which John had climbed the day before. Jake and Chris climbed a Corbett near to Ben Heasgarnich. John went much further North to Struy and got permission to take a car up Glen Strathfarrar to climb a Graham in the pouring rain before heading further Northwards to start climbing the remote, outlying Grahams of the far North, over the next couple of weeks.

Climbing meet report, Wednesday 23rd April 2014

Another meet beset by rain, which prevented play on the crag from even starting.  Members went to Penrith climbing wall instead.

Meet Report, Sunday Walk, 4 May 2012

Speaking too soon and just deserts.

Well, announcing a reminder of the Sunday with prospects of good weather was bound to be risky and so it turned out to be – yet another Sunday walk beset by poor weather. Four stoic members and a guest (including that old guy again) set out from Ennerdale in sizeable precipitation.  The originally planned itinerary was slightly modified to assist your newsletter editor in collecting in some of the controls of the Easter mystery trip, which is now closed.  The route took us up, around the flanks of Crag Fell on what was possibly the old daily access route to work for the miners at the old mine workings around this area.  Then out to the remains of a crashed aeroplane in 50m visibility fog, driving rain and wind which numbed un-gloved hands. Upon working round to the reward cache it was found, disappointingly for all of the effort put in by the course organiser, that not a single reward had been claimed, so the editor generously allowed the entire cache of 35 rewards to be shared between just the five of us – yum, yum, amply providing compensation for the poor weather.  We were happy to leave just a load of raspberries for everyone else.

Crianlarich Meet Success

Martin & Sarah climbed a Corbett on the drive up to the meet, on Thursday.

On Friday, the group woke to new snowfall down to about 200m. Martin & Sarah climbed the Munro Meall Ghaordhie whilst John, having now suspended his winter Munro bagging for another year until next winter, climbed a Graham.

On Saturday, members woke to fresh snow on the cars in the hut car park.  Martin and Sarah drove as far as possible up the minor road to where the Ben Lawers visitor centre used to be and then took advantage of another party’s trail through the deep snow to reach the summit of the Munro Meall nan Tarmachan.  Due to the low visibility they decided not to attempt to follow the convoluted ridge westwards and returned.  John attempted a Graham via an intermediary, sub-Graham hill, but met trackless deep heather which resulted in an “endless” sequence of post-holing through knee to waist deep snow drifts and with no-one else to share the hard work of breaking trail retreated after the intermediary hill.

On Sunday, there were azure skies and Sarah and Martin climbed the Corbett Beinn Chuirn, near Beinn Laoigh (Ben Lui). With no-one to share the trail breaking on any Grahams, John returned home early.

Culra Bothy Closure

The MBA have just announced closure of the wooden hut bothy at Culra, allegedly due to an asbestos hazard.  More information can be found at http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/culra-bothy-closed/0010462/.  This bothy provided a good base for the remote Munros around Ben Alder. (Editor's note:- I am fairly certain that there is also a stone/rendered adjacent building which I have used in the past). Ben Alder Cottage is perhaps the nearest alternative (free) base, otherwise it's Loch Ossian SYHA (very basic, no showers, no fridge, just like a bothy, really.......except bothies don't need a fridge, they often are one).