8 Down, 276 To Go

Although I've been walking for some time now, since I was a small infant I believe, apart from the odd foray into the Lake District, I've never tried anything that even I would class as too adventurous. On Friday 19th. February this was about to change. Whilst sat in the pub in Patterdale having just completed John Deighton's January hill walk, euphoria had set in and I found myself asking to be included on this year's four day trip climbing Munros.

I'd spent most of the evening before departure trying to decide what to and what not to take with me. As my car was to be part of the convoy, I decided to take everything. Seven o'clock Friday morning I loaded up my car double checking I had packed an ice axe, crampons, woolly hat, family pack of Twix and the latest issue of Trail Magazine which included a "Munro Special" pullout supplement with a chart for ticking off each one as you complete it, I was set. On picking up Roger Swainston, I was glad to see he had as much gear as I did.

We arrived a little late at the rendezvous point, the North lakes Hotel near Penrith, didn't want to look too keen. Len Pope and Alan Turner had already arrived with Roland Bean. Geoff Edmondson provided the third car taking John and Tim Deighton. Counting four other mountain bikers, I was becoming less apprehensive about the trip.

The plan for our first day, was to drive up to Callander where we met up in the car park. Whilst Geoff's car load tucked into scotch pies, we planned our attack. Our first Munro was to be Ben Vorlich (3231ft. or 985m.). In case you don't already know, basically any Scottish mountain over a height of 3000ft. (some are excluded by the small print) is classified as a Munro. Sir Hugh Thomas Munro of Lindertis published his tables listing such mountains in 1891. Currently there are 284 mountains listed as Munros.

Our first moment of excitement happened as we were passing through a farm yard past some cows. Luckily, for the rest of us, Tim was in front. One of the cows became rather protective of her calf and gave poor Tim a few butts to the leg. I can only assume she knew Tim was self catering and hadn't brought much food with him. The rest of our climb was fairly uneventful apart from spotting an arctic hare.

Ben Vorlich was in fact my first Munro but I didn't mention this till we had reached the summit of the second, Stuc a' Chroin (3198ft. or 975m.). I was afraid there would be some strange initiation ritual I would have to endure. Alan had had the same thoughts and announced he to had been a Munro virgin until this day.

The final few miles of our descent were accomplished with the aid of torches, it being well after 8pm when we reached the cars. Now you may think this was bad planning but as the next three days passed without a hitch, I have come to the conclusion Tim had purposely added a few miles to our route to ensure the cow was fast asleep on our return.

We still of course had to drive to our lodgings which was to be the Tulloch Station Lodge. This being an independent hostel about twelve miles north-eastish of Fort William. Even though we had phoned Alan the proprietor to explain we would be late, we were still surprised to find he had a meal for us when we finally arrived very late in the evening.

Day 2 - having eaten more for breakfast than I normally consume in a day, we drove a few miles to our starting point. The morning was spent climbing at a steady rate over some fairly rough terrain. I found this quite tough and was glad when it was time to stop for lunch. I was sheltering behind a rock busy eating my sarnies when I happened to look upwards and noticed the others were well on their way up a steep snow covered gully. I struggled fitting my crampons, the first time I'd tried fitting them outside my kitchen.

As I climbed my way up the gully, I noticed animal paw prints in the snow following those of the others. It was definitely following as some of its paw-prints were inside the footprints. Also, it appeared to have claws, so it was possibly an arctic fox or a hare wearing crampons. Despite the steep climb, we made good progress and were soon at our first summit of the day, Stob Coire Easain (3658ft. or 1115m.) on the Grey Corries ridge.

The weather was a bit bleak as we kept at a height on our way to our next peak, Stob a' Choire Mheadhion (3625ft. or 1105m.), time for Roly to bring out his much loved green balaclava. Visibility was poor on the tops but we did witness some cracking views as we made the arduous descent back to the cars.

After another good meal, we lazed away the rest of the evening in the hostel lounge whilst a young lad tried to teach Alan the rudiments of chess and Len serenaded us with his Northumbrian Pipes.

Day 3 - the forecast for today was poor and in fact we had our waterproofs on just to load up the cars but a couple of miles into the walk overtrousers were being removed. As the climbing got tougher, Tim raced ahead so he could point out to us the easiest (presumably?) way to the top of Stob Coire Sgriodain (3211ft. or 979m.), my spell checker is becoming very annoyed at these strange names.

There were two other groups traversing the wide snow covered ridge that took us to Chno Dearg (3431ft. or 1046m.). There were three walkers in front and two behind us, our only encounter with other human life forms during our four days in the mountains. Although again visibility was poor, it was quite a sight seeing a long line of "mountaineers" making their way across the snow, just like you see on the tele.

As we descended we were able to look across Loch Treig at a smashing view of yesterday's Munros. We must have made good progress as we returned to the hostel quite early to find it was still locked. This was ok though as our host, when he did arrive to open up, bought us all a drink. Whilst having our meal, we discussed who had experienced the best views of the day with other guests. Unfortunately we had to accept defeat to the Cairngorms.

Final day - start was delayed as we all stood outside the hostel watching a specially adapted Land Rover drive onto the railway lines and transform into a railway engine, before our very eyes. This excitement was very much enhanced with a running commentary from Geoff who's in the Plant game, plant as in JCBs not geraniums. After emptying the drying room for the last time, we were off.

We drove to a lay-by at the Pass of Drumochter just south of Dalwhinnie. For the first time, we had a road to cross and not just any road. As you are probably aware this road has the highest accident rate in Britain with 875 fatal and serious accidents per billion vehicle kilometres, nearly twice that of its nearest rival, the A537. After safely negotiating the road we then had to cross a railway line, carefully watching out for trains and specially adapted Land Rovers as we did so.

For our last day temperatures had dropped to freezing. We had a snow covered climb but not too steep to our first summit, Beinn Udlamain (3316ft. or 1011m.). Conditions were very wild on the tops with visibility down to a few feet. Initially we had a boundary fence to help us find our way to the second summit A'Mharconaich (3198ft. or 975m.) but for the final half mile or so we had no navigational aids apart from of course Tim and his trusty compass. After fifteen minutes of us all closely following Tim, as if by magic a cairn marking the summit of A'Mharconaich appeared ten feet ahead of us. Tim's my hero. We didn't waste any time at the summit but quickly retraced our steps (literally) to the boundary fence. Then it was out with the compass again to guide us back down to the cars.

With our eighth and final Munro in the bag, all we had to do now was drive home. We had what I'm told is a traditional stop at the Abington Services off the M74. John was just remarking that Len and Roly were not partaking in the other tradition of cod and chips when the waitress arrived with fish and chips for two.

To summit(!) up, I suppose it was a shame we missed out on the views from the tops, due to the poor visibility but for me personally, everyday I encountered terrain and weather conditions different both from any of the previous days and from any excursions I've done in the past so it was all a new experience to me and I loved every minute of it. Thanks to everybody for their part in making it such an enjoyable trip. Special thanks to Tim and Roger for planning the routes and guiding us round and of course to John for organising the trip. Hopefully John, you will keep organising these trips as with eight Munros each year it will take me till the year 2037 to achieve the lot.

Right, what am I doing this weekend? Oh, I see from the programme I'm leading a mountain bike ride on the Saturday, I'd forgotten about that. What's the walk this Sunday? A walk up some tiny hillock named Whernside (2415ft. or 736m.). As the leader is Alan, I better show willing for a fellow Munroist !

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

8 Down, 276 To Go

Dave Neesam