Following on from the last successful meet at Cairndow village hall in 2023, where we had great weather, great days on the local mountains, half the club seemed to have been present at the meet, Alistair and the massage chair, and we can’t forget the Saturday night in the Cairndow Inn, I decided that the club should make a return trip in 2026. Unfortunately, due to the meet falling on Easter weekend as well as the forecast of Storm ‘Dave’ arriving on the Saturday, whom was to lash the whole of Scotland with gales, rain and snow – only seven members decided to make the long drive down to the meet.

However, Bob and Fiona had not that far to travel as they had already spent a week down the area, in order to tick off some of the outlier Munros that had to be done. However as Bob commented, the weather had been so rotten all week that they ended up spending the week not bagging Munros, but visiting some rather interesting places and some of the smaller islands off the Argyll coast.

Everyone arrived at the hall at various points throughout Friday evening. Most of the group decided to head over to the Cairndow Inn and to see if we could book a table for a group meal on the Saturday night. Since our last visit, the Inn had changed hands. The rather too inquisitive owner was present. After detecting the Glaswegian accents from both Barry and me, the owner told us that he had worked in a number of Indian restaurants in Glasgow and asked the both of us to mention an Indian eatery that we have visited, for him to proclaim that the curries that was on his menu was far better than theirs, and this went on for quite a while!

After checking the weather forecast to see that storm Dave was due to arrive in the area on Saturday afternoon, it was decided to retire early back to the Village Hall and have an early start in the morning in order to make good of the calm weather before the dreaded arrival of Dave.

The next morning Alan, Fiona D, Fiona C, Bob and Mirella, left Cairndow early, drove up to the Rest and be Thankful, and went for a walk up the Corbett Ben Donich. The hills had a top up of their winter coats overnight. The walk was described as enjoyable and despite the snow, it was not that difficult underfoot, with exception of the short scrambling part over the fault line on the ridge – which required some care due to the snow cover. The group were treated to some wonderful views throughout the day – as seen by the pictures.

Barry and I, decided to walk up Glen Fyne to Inverchorachan – which is the start point of the steep pull up the munro of Beinn Bhuidhe. We enjoyed a late breakfast in the sunshine before the walk back to the car.

Everyone had arrived safely back at the Village Hall at around lunchtime and after a few cups of tea and some of Mirella’s rock cakes, we decided to head over to the Loch Fyne Brewery. By the time we had reached the brewery, Dave had now arrived with wind and torrential rain. We enjoyed a couple of beers at the brewery and played the Stacking Chairs Game as well as Uno.

In the evening the group headed over to Cairndow Inn for dinner. The food was good and the curry was excellent, however Alan had to wait much longer for his curry and the reason was that I overheard a conversation at the bar between the owner and chef that they had made not enough rice and this resulted in a ‘discussion’ between the two as to how much rice that the chef should cook. After the meal, the owner tried every trick to keep us in the Inn in order for us to spend more at the bar, such that after a while, when the owner had turned his back on us, we quickly sneaked out off the Inn and into the wrath of Dave. After a night cap at the village hall, we all turned in for the night after what was a superb day.

The next morning, Dave had passed and calmness had resumed at Cairndow, however overnight the snowline on the mountains had further dropped to around 300 meters. After breakfast, we promptly packed up, cleaned and locked up the hall and said our goodbyes.

I drove east and immediately met Dave and his torrential rain and then headed up north from the A9. It was apparent from Drumochter that Dave had been busy and the A9 was just passable with the substantial fall of snow.

Mirella went home via Glencoe and stopped to walk the Glencoe orbital walk in between lots of hail and wind. She commented that it was a nice way to appreciate the mountains before heading home.

Alan and Fiona were staying locally for a few more days in Drymen. In view of the rain and snow they headed to Glasgow on Sunday, where Fiona enjoyed some serious retail therapy. Monday was much improved and Alan and Fiona climbed Ben Lomond. They had their full winter kit and couldn’t believe what people were wearing. Hardly any ice axes where seen. Tiny or no rucsacs, and incredibly a guy with a coop bag. One woman had a handbag. It was very wintry near the summit with snow on the ground.

Again, despite our unwanted guest Dave limiting the amount of walking that we could do during the course of the meet, we all still had an enjoyable weekend. Since the meet, the Cairndow Inn has been taken over by the local community, with the promise of upgrades and improvements, so hopefully the visit to the Inn will be much more enjoyable the next time the club is back in the area.

And yes, the massage chair is still there…