What, no trains before 9pm?  It was true, there was only one northbound train the entire day to take us home, and it didn’t arrive until after nine in the evening…

Last April the club tried out a new meet destination and booked Loch Ossian Youth Hostel for the weekend.  It proved to be an excellent and very popular destination, and a great time of year, with the prevalence of snow and lack of midgies.  This year we thought we’d do it again, but shift the date to March, hoping for even more snow and even less chance of midgies.  One thing the organiser of this meet didn’t take into account is the start of March is considered to be “winter” by the train timetable, whereas the start of April is “summer”.

Not to worry, the majority of the assembled crew drove the extra hour or so to Rannoch station and got either the afternoon or evening train in from there on the Friday, returning on the respectably timed 6pm train on Sunday.  Only Heavy arrived on the train from Tulloch, and left on the Saturday evening train, bound for another party elsewhere, social butterfly that he is.  Sue arrived by train from the deep south, managing to secure a lift to Elgin on the Sunday.  Alistair, on just his second MMC meet, arrived in style, over the hills of Chno Dearg, and left in even more style by traversing the magnificent Easians to return to his car at Fersit.  But the prize for stylish entrances goes to newbie Rose, whose entrance was so stylish as to defy description.  “Well I didn’t know I couldn’t”.

Snow was what many had come for, and so when a group ascended Beinn na Lap on Saturday morning it was on skis.  The best way to travel in the winter hills.  Dan, Graeme, Joe, Rose and Simon skinned up the southern flank of the hill whilst Penny The Wonder Dog scampered around, happy to be out in the white stuff.  Sadly, Simon was feeling decidedly unwell and descended back to the hostel for a mug of tea and an afternoon in bed. The rest of the party carried on and, fearing the north slopes would be scoured and bare, traversed the east facing slope northwards to meet the Allt Feith Thaill and then climbed Chno Dearg.  There, having seen nobody all day, and being below the cloud all day, they reached the summit in the clag and at the same time as two other parties, all of which were on skis.  For a short while the summit of the hill resembled an Alpine resort but the parties soon departed in their respective directions and the four skiers plus bounding dog descended southwards.  After traversing the slopes of Garbh Bheinn they peered down into the valley.  It promised to be the descent of the day, with steep deep powder snow down to the meandering river below.  Rose, with her recent experience of Japanese powder skiing led off and promptly disappeared over a cornice.  Luckily, this unexpected drop was not large cliff and no harm was done in the wee tumble.  The other skiers, glad to have sent a canary down the mine shaft first, managed to avoid the steepest part and they all set off down what turned out to be heavy and crusty snow, not very nice for skiing.  Yet another ascent brought them onto the shoulder of Beinn na Lap where, in sight of the hostel the best quality run of the day was enjoyed.

Sue set off on one of her long remote walks that she has become known for, this time down to Loch Treig and west towards Fort Willaim.  She stopped off at Meannanach Bothy and debated heading on and perhaps doing a circular walk but sensibly decided to retrace her steps to the hostel and not run the risk of being benighted on Rannoch Moor on a wintry night.

Heavy led a bunch of eager mountaineers up a lovely trio of hills on the south side of Loch Ossian. Alastair, Alasdair, Jenny, Jennifer (can we not have some variety of names here?), Jan, Greig, Bob and Katie climbed Carn Dearg from the hostel and continued eastwards down to the beallach of Mam Ban before climbing the lovely conical twin summits of Sgor Gaibhre and Sgor Chonnich.  Crampons were required for the steep slopes up Sgor Gaibhre and newer club members were very thankful for Heavy’s experience and advice.  “One of those magic days”.

Another group consisted of invalids.  These people complained of a range of ailments, ranging from genuine hangover and back pain to the slightly dubious general lassitude and chronic languorousness.  These ailments did not, however, prevent them from making the most of the day.  They circumnavigated Loch Ossian, which at nearly seven and a half miles long, and some of the track covered in snow, may have been quite an achievement for the least well amongst them.  It also gave them plenty of time to take in the views and Master Forester Ben was on hand to teach those with a thirst for knowledge all they could wish to know about the flora and fauna of the forest.

Sunday dawned fine and everyone was keen to head to the hills.  Bob, Graeme, Jan, Dan, Jenny, Greig and Penny TWD walked the fine horseshoe that is Leum Uilleim.  Fine views down Loch Treig and over to the Mamores were had from the first lunch stop at the subsidiary top of Beinn a Bhric  By the time they reached the summit they could see the other hill-going MMC party which consisted of…

Al, Jen, Sue, Cate, Brad, Katie, Sheila and Joe.  They decided to climb Beinn na Lap.  This was the first Munro that Cate had ever climbed, so for it to require ice axe and crampons, be a particularly remote one, and on a day with beautiful views was a wonderful way to begin a passion in Scottish mountaineering.  For Brad too, it was an unexpected summit.  Having come along on the meet with a bad back, the Saturday walk round the loch had helped to straighten things out and allowed him to reach for higher things.  One of the group brought skis along and spent the day smugly extolling the virtues of planks over boot soles.  The group returned to the hostel with plenty time to spare before the train was due to arrive so said planker decided to pass the time by taking on the Loch Ossian Challenge.  Apparently this challenge was set up by the then Youth Hostel Warden in 1977.  The concept is simple – run around the loch in less than an hour.  So, after some rather abstract discussion on the advantages of clockwise versus anti-clockwise and with Jenny on the stopwatch he set off.  One hour, four minutes and 17 seconds later he returned.  Next time maybe…