8-9 December 2007

Killin village hall provided the warmth and shelter for a typical December weekend, not to mention an obvious car park for Jake Lee and Janice Taylor’s campervan. Come Saturday morning and the 0700 reveille, all personnel readied for the somewhat dreich day ahead.

This was, however, day two for Ali Erginsoy and Graeme Bartlett, who had set off early on Friday morning, arriving at the Schiehallion car park for 10am, enduring wintry blasts up to the summit. Ali took the opportunity to remove a metal plaque scarring the summit rock with his ice axe before they descended the western slopes to a small, unnamed bothy for shelter. From there they carried on to inspect the Glenmore and Pheiginn bothies before fording a river to regain their car by 5pm.

Saturday saw a long drive up the Glen Lyon link road for Evelyne Droege, Chrissy McKay, Ray Harron and Dave Galloway, who arrived at the headwall of the Dam at the foot of Stuchd an Lochain a few minutes ahead of Ali and Graeme B. The treacherous icy conditions on the road gave rise to a debate on roadkill hunting techniques in respect of the many roadside deer, but Ray wasn’t playing and it was his car.

On Stuchd an Lochain, it was snowing just above 1000ft and the snow level was 1500ft. The team returned via the beach on Lochan Daimh to the start, where the idea of Meall Buidhe was binned.

Graeme Gunn put up with high winds and snow to complete Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’ Chroin, bringing down to about a dozen the Munros left to do. He earned his wildlife badge spotting a blue hare and nearly stood on a fox that was sheltering under a peat hag.

Andy Williams thought St Fillan was smiling on him as he passed the old priory on the way to Ben Challum in calm weather. An hour later at 650m, the loud humming emanating from the wire fence should perhaps have warned him what lay ahead. By the time he turned northwards below the south top, the wind was howling and it was icy underfoot. A cheeseburger and a pot of tea in Killin seemed the better option, so he turned and fled down hill. @!!#s to St Fillan, the mountain will still be there tomorrow.

Jake, Janice and Ruby fared little better. In their own words:

The van plus three came to Killin,
For to climb Ben Lawers, God willing.
But the day dawned grim,
So it seemed a sin
To leave the bed, that by ten, they were still in.
[These ditties don’t get any better do they? Ed.]

Alan and Fiona Duncan, Margaret Paterson, Amanda Strang and Bob Macdonald set off for Creag Mhor, but ended up doing Meall Glas instead, by a quite steep and slippery slope. The summit was almost in a whiteout and they could have been on the moon for all they knew. As darkness descended, Alan, Fiona and Margaret drove off with Amanda and Bob to follow on. Amanda unfortunately reversed her car into the ditch and Bob ended up waist deep in freezing muddy water trying to push it out. This was abandoned when the clutch started to smell of burning, so Bob set off to get help. A “cute” tractor driver duly turned up and safely extracted the car.
Overnight snow brought the snowline down to a few hundred meters above the village. Amanda, Chrissy, Evelyne and Margaret went home, while Val Kemp, who had joined us that morning from Glasgow, teamed up with Graeme G, Bob, and Fiona to climb Ben Chonzie. Alan took in Bein Dearg in Glen Lyon while Dave and Ray returned via Schiehallion, which had a good ten inches of powder snow on the ridge. Ali and Graeme crossed the A9 and did Ben Vreckie. On the descent they thought they spotted Chris Bonnington, although in retrospect they thought it unlikely that the great man would be wearing a Eurohike sack.

In conclusion, sixteen members shared this introduction to the winter season, and despite the hall’s resident chip van being closed until February, a good time was had by all.

Dave Galloway