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

Weather forecast

Where we live the weather is always a topic of conversation. There are loads of sites offering weather forecasts, I'm sure you've got your favourite. I tend to go by the Mountain Weather Information Service for a reliable short term hill forecast, and the met office for a 5 day general forecast.
Here's a link to a longer term forecast that might prove useful when planning a week ahead.
http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Fort_William/long.html Thanks to Cris for passing this on to us. There's a surprise, next week is forecast for rain!

More on Blog problems

A search with Google reveals that lots of people are  having problems adding comments, especially since last month  ! See this link for example.


There are two suggested fixes in this page  -

1) change the comment form style to use a "full page form". I have done this.

2) blog users should permit "third party cookies" in the browser. To do this, click on "Edit", then "Preferences" and "accept third party cookies".



Could people try this and let me know how they get on. It would be useful, if you could also say which browser (Firefox, Opera,IE,...) you are using and whether you allow third party cookies.


                                   Thanks

Blog Problems

I'd like to comment on some of the recent posts, but having technical difficulties. Ron has made some suggestions, but I'm still unable to add a comment, although I can add a new post, such as this.
It's not really a problem, I just wanted bloggers to know that's the reason I can't say "Well Done" when members provide details of exciting outings, e.g. Ron, Sarah etc !!

On Top of the Cuillin

Several years ago, I wrote a piece for the club newsletter, describing a day in Skye with Andrew, Gerry and Wesley. We climbed up the Sgumain Stone Chute and on to Sgurr Sgumain. The plan was to reach Sgurr Alistair (Andrew knew an easy route over !) but the conditions were awful - we never saw more than 10 metres all day and everything was dripping wet - so we gave up, despite being only 170 metres from the summit of Sgurr Alistair,  and descended to Coir a  Ghrunnda. Clearly unfinished business.

So last Sunday, I returned with Cris, Sarah and Graham Paterson. The plan was to do Sgurr nan Eag, Sgurr Dubh Mor and Sgurr Alistair. It meant that I missed the club walk on the Five Sisters of Kintail which is one of my favourite walks but that is Munro-bagging for you. We set off from the Glen Brittle camp-site at 8am and traversed round to Coir a Ghrunnda. Then, instead of the usual path, hugging the cliffs on the left, we followed a route up through the boiler-plate slabs and ended up south of the lochan. Then it was up a huge stone-filled gully on to the ridge and out to Sgurr nan Eag. One down, two to go !

Back along the ridge, cross over to the east side of the Caisteal, up to Sgurr Dubh an da Bheinn and out to Sgurr Dubh Mor. The scrambling was getting serious now - a succession of narrow exposed ledges and steep stony gullies but we all made it to the summit. Two down, one to go !

Return to Da Bheinn by the same route, then contour round Coir a Ghrunnda, keeping right up next to the cliff so as not to lose height. A stop for lunch and a welcome rest. Up yet more stone fields,  a dark, wet chimney, several more narrow ledges (dont even want to think about the drops !) and scrambles. Then the slope eased off a little and we were in a steep, stony gully which led us straight to the tiny summit of Sgurr Alistair. No real cairn (not enough room) - just an insignificant little pile of stones.  Then scramble along a narrow exposed ridge  down to the top of the Great Stone Chute. Sarah and Graham went off for a look at the TD Gap. Cris and I just sat down, glad of a rest. Sarah found Mike Pescod of Abacus Mountaineering at the TD Gap with a large group who were doing the Ridge Traverse. I gather she told him we were Nevis Hillwalkers - not clear whether he was impressed or horrified to find us in such a place .

Then it was down the Great Stone Chute. All I can say about this, is that I might recommend it, some day,  to someone whom I really don't like. But it got us to Coire Lagan and into tourist territory.

Clearly, a fantastic day out - maybe even better than the Five Sisters.

Lochan a Coir a Grunnda

Coruisk

Sgurr nan Eag Summit

Coruisk

Coruisk