1st Ever Wild Camp

Last Wednesday I set off from Milngavie about 6.45am to Dalwhinnie. Parked the car and cycled in laden with tent and all the add ons. Arrived near the Bothy at Culra,set up tent had lunch then climbed Geal-Charn and Carn Dearg. The clouds and mist had lifted and the views were excellent. Arrived at tent about 6pm and had dinner!! about 7pm. Went for a walk though in bed by 9.30 and slept sound till 8pm.
Prefer tent as sleeping on grass is a bit softer than the hard board in a Bothy.

Next morning I climbed Ben Alder and Beinn Bheoil though the weather was not as good with mist and cloud hanging around till after lunch. Got back to tent about 3pm, had food then took tent down and packed bags for the cycle back to Dalwhinnie. Set off for home about 6pm and home for 8pm. A great two days, as back in Glasgow it rained. managed to get the best of the weather and good experience for tackling the Fisherfield 6  sometime in the future.

First munro

Yesterday I took Peter and Douglas dog up their first munro. Peter has climbed a couple of corbetts and the pap of glencoe and was keen to do a munro. Douglas is 9 months now and I was hoping he was up to a good walk.

I chose one still on my list that has the least ascent and distance - Meall Buidhe in Glen Lyon. I had heard the views were spectaular on a good day, and they didn't disappoint. From the summit we could see across Rannoch Moor to Stob Ghabar, Buachaille Etive Mor, Ben Nevis, and further north. All the summits were laid out infront of us like a model of Scottish hills. I can't wait to go back to the area and do Stuchd an Lochain.

Hillwalking in England

After my Irish & Welsh expeditions, all that remained was to bag the 6 peaks in England listed by the SMC as being over 3000 feet.

I climbed Scafell on a very busy day down at Wast Water with many participants in the 3 Peaks Challenge, however my route up Green How soon got me away from the crowds. A descent down the ravine at Foxes Tarn and then a further 300m ascent saw me on Scafell Pike in time to witness two rescues, with two helicopters involved. It made for quite a noisy day ! A quick trip to Broad Crag and Ill Crag was required before a descent back to Wast Water over Lingmell.

To complete what is known as "The Furths" in Munro's Tables, I did another ascent of Helvellyn one sunny afternoon, and the following morning plodded up Skiddaw with my wife to complete the list. The photo above shows that some fizz was consumed to celebrate !

Well, that's it - all 545 peaks listed in Munro's Tables as being 3000+ feet successfully climbed, many in Scotland in the company of Nevis members.

Did somebody mention Corbetts ? Just don't tell my wife who says "NO MORE LISTS" .......

Hillwalking in Wales

After my Irish trip in May, I decided to continue my quest to bag all the 3000 foot mountains in Britain & Ireland with a trip to Wales, combining this with a touring holiday by caravan.

There are 15 peaks in Wales credited with being at least 3000 feet, and if you are sufficiently masochistic it's possible to do them all in one massive 20 hour expedition, but I decided to break the task down to three managable days of 6 - 8 hours each. Day One I tackled the classic Snowdon Horseshoe route, up Crib Goch, along over the pinnacles to Crib y Ddysgl, then on to Snowdon itself (large numbers of people who had come up by train !) and then finally over Y Lliwedd to complete the circle. A very enjoyable day in pleasant sunshine. The second photo shows the Crib Goch pinnacles (very similar to parts of the Aonach Eagach) and Snowdon on the skyline.

Day 2 I climbed the Glyders starting with Tryfan, and the first photo shows the extent of the North Ridge - which I didn't take on, preferring the Llyn Bochlwyd approach. A further 4 peaks were traversed, all over rocky terrain for a 19k walk with 1800m of ascent.

And then finally Day 3 was over the Carneddau, seven peaks in a long line (with an out-and-back excursion to one of them). My wife dropped me just up from the A55 road near the North Coast and came to pick me up when I finished the 23k at Llyn Ogwen.

There were rainy days in between, but I was very lucky to pick three days when I only had one shower of 5 minutes, which seemed to contrast with the weather being reported back in Scotland !

Eilean a'Cheo

Skye certainly lived up to its reputation as the misty isle last weekend. I met Cris, her friend Alastair, and our guide Graham (Skye-Hi) at 9pm at Sligachan and we headed into the clouds. Our main goal was Am Basteir so we climbed up to Sgurr a Bhasteir and along the somewhat slippery ridge. We had no views, but I suspect the drop was far greater than we imagined, and I was somewhat thankful not to see the full extent of it. We hid our bags and Graham took myself and Alastair along to Bruach na Frithe.

Back to Cris, our bags, and a quick bite to eat before following a faint scree path on the north side of the ridge. Looking up to our right we could just make out the Am Basteir tooth looming above. Having lost some height we then turned back on ourselves and started to climb once more, up the east ridge of Am Basteir. We had to negotiate lots of wet slabs, short scrambles and a "bad step" before reaching the summit (which was marked by a slighlty disappointing handful of stones).

We retraced our steps back down and continued east to the Bealach a Bhasteir. Here I left Cris and Alastair, and Graham attached a rope to me. Then came the difficult (scary) bit. With Graham leading we climbed up a chimney, and then along the ridge. There are no words to describe this. It was somewhere between scrambling and climbing, and quite the most terrifying thing I have ever done. There was one point where I was 'this close' to calling it a day. However we got round, over and under all the rocks which stood in our way and soon reached the summit of Sgurr nan Gillean. I had an adrenalin fueled grin on my face when we returned to the others. It took some time before relief to be back turned into excitement about what I had just achieved.

Another amazing day in the cuillins. Perhaps one day I will do Sgurr nan Gillean from the more usual NE ridge, and peek over looking west and say "I came up that way last time"!

Braemar Trip

On Monday evening I drove up to Braemar to stay at the Hostel and do a couple of days hillwalking.

On Tuesday I cycled up the track from Linn of Dee to the Derry Lodge where I left my bike. From the Lodge I headed north up a path through the forest then picked a spot to head north east to Beinn Bhreac through thick heather. Reached summit in mist. From there headed north over 4km of bog to the summit of  Beinn a' Chaorainn. Just as I reached the summit the mist lifted and had splendid views all round. From here I dropped down south west to the Lairig an Laoigh, cut across heathery ground to pick the path up that headed west, passing the memorial hut up to Loch Eichachan. From there headed south to Derry Cairngorm then south west to Derry Lodge. It had been a big climb from Lairg an Laoigh to Derry Cairngorm of 455 metres.
On day 2. I again took bike to Derry Lodge and headed west to Lairg Ghru then Corrour Bothy and took the path behind the bothy to the summit of The Devil's Point. It was sunny all day and had great views in all directions. Back the same route then home.

Aonach Eagach

I joined the club this week to navigate the Aonoch Eagach ridge and what a great time I had. It was a hard but satisfying day but tired legs were forgotten as we gradually put each difficult, and there are many, problems behind. It was much harder than I remembered, I'm sure someones been adding bits on. Sitting on the first top, Am Bodach, the cloud rolled in and blotted out the terrific views and I thought that was it but just as quickly they rolled away and luckily kept away all day. So we had the best day possible, great views and the most exciting scrambles. There is, of course, two Munros but they come well down the list of achievement. This was my fourth traverse of the ridge and I don't know if there will be a fifth but if it is my last time I signed off on a high ( should be on the programme every year)

Settings

Until recently I was unable to publish a post.I discovered that by going into settings once you have gone into the blog you then scroll down to Global settings. Click on Updated Editor(recommended). This will take you away from old editor and everything should be ok.
Les

200th Munro

Hi All

I was out on the club walk last Sunday and joined the group that climbed Beinn Eibhinn and Aonach Beag, the latter being my 200th. At the summit we celebrated with a small dram from my hip flask. It was a great day weather wise, though when I will finish doing them all, I do not know.

Les