17 February 2008

An ever popular winter destination, Laggan once again attracted an excellent turnout of 30 members and guests. The weather conditions were decent and all enjoyed a good day out.

First off the bus, Graeme Bartlett had a lovely walk up the river Pattack and round the loch in glorious sunshine. He made his way to the col past frozen Loch a’ Bhealaich Leamhain and finished the day at Luiblea.

Lesley and Malcolm Leiper and Flora Hunt completed a traverse from Kinloch Laggan to Moy Lodge following the Binnein Shios ridge. The gradient being fairly steep on Binnea Shuas, they decided they would rather drop down and enjoy a walk through the lovely pine forest along Loch Laggan.

On the east side of the A86, Andy Brooks reported an equally good day out on Beinn a’ Chlachair despite a chilly wind and some clag at the top. Val Kemp, Alan McConnachie, Illona Morrice and Annette Turnidge went up the same hill and also had a good day’s walking with beautiful views all around until they got near the summit.

A few groups headed off from Aberarder car park. The largest party consisting of Caroline Chaplin, Simon Fildes, Paul Gerraghty, John Henderson, Lee Madden, Paul Nash and Ray Newell completed the round of three Munros Carn Liath, Stob Poite Coire Ardair and Creag Meagaidh in an anticlockwise manner. Good progress was made and they reached the first top in two hours. With a fast pace set and decent weather conditions, the team soldiered on and bagged all three hills in 6hr30. A successful day enjoyed by all.

Moray Anderson, Martin Dowd and Andy Williams followed the Allt Coire Ardair to find a Window filled with harder snow than expected. They headed right to the “pot” and the “hoary cairn” (Liath). Having neither crampons nor ice ax, they decided against a descent by the window.

Ray Harron, Natacha Mihajlovic, Martin Tull and Simon Willatts took the motorway to Lochain a Choire, where the group stopped for lunch. After a photographic session and a bit of a gear faff, they climbed Easy Gully. The summit of Creag Meagaidh was reached soon after. The party enjoyed stunning views from Creag na Cailliche, the southern shoulder of the hill to Moy.

Further west, David Brown Douglas, Dave Galloway and Ken Ross went up to the Tom Mor bealach and veered left to the top of Beinn Teallach. They retraced their steps down to the col wherefrom David BD carried on to Beinn a’ Chaorainn. Dave opted for a shorter day by returning to the bus at the Laggan dam car park.

Fran Knowles went up to Loch a Shialich Leathan which she found to be an exquisite water feature. She spotted 23 stags exactly and 2 ravens.

Finally, Dave McLean, Allan McLeod and Gordon Mogach dropped off at Tulloch Station to go up Chlian’aig (the hill with no name) where they enjoyed good views of all the surrounding area. It turned out to be a longer day than expected, but they were back at the bus with 15mns to spare.

Natacha Mihajlovic

For more photos from this meet click here