The Moray Mountaineering Club Weekend Meet to Eigg was a long time in the planning.  That’s if vaguely thinking about it can be regarded as planning.  About ten years ago the club was camping in Glen Brittle.  After a day of fine weather and classic scrambling on the Skye Cuillin a few Moray Mountaineers were enjoying the evening sun and some beers and got chatting to a couple of young ladies cooking outside their tent.  It turned out that they were from Eigg and the family had a bunkhouse.  It sounded like an intriguing place to visit but surely not one that a mountaineering club would visit, after all, the highest point on Eigg is under 400m.

Years later, the club was on a customary May Day long weekend.  This one was to Rum, a favourite destination with wild mountains, excellent walking and scrambling and quality climbing on the roughest Gabbro amidst deserted ridges and corries.  The homeward bound ferry was boarded and it sailed to Mallaig via Eigg.  As the island drew closer more details emerged of the coast and cliffs along the eastern edge of the island.  It looked like a beautiful place to explore, and when the ferry docked in the harbour at Galmisdale the view to An Sgurr was truly spectacular, rising out of the grass and heather of the island so steep, so impenetrable as to be reminiscent of Yosemite’s El Capitan.  It was decided then and there, the club would go to Eigg.   But did the bunkhouse mentioned so many years before still exist?

Two years later, on the Friday of the May Day weekend of 2016 a large group of Moray Mountaineers disembarked from the MV Shearwater and set foot on Eigg.  They were met by Stuart, husband of Tamsin, who, incidentally had met some Moray Mountaineers while camping in Glen Brittle about ten years ago.  The luggage into his car and trailer leaving everyone unladen for the wander up the road to the bunkhouse, which proved to be a beautiful and functional building with a lovely new sun room with a view to die for.

The day before there had been a huge unseasonable dump of snow and much remained, despite the strong Spring sunshine.  Given the blue skies a unanimous decision was taken to climb An Sgurr.  Heavy set off in the lead, with a posse of fans trailing behind. Babs, Susan, Ray, Derrick, Lessley, Corrine, Ros, Alan and Malcolm followed as Heavy broke trail through deep snow.  Trailing behind were another group who didn’t quite make the quick turnaround of the first group…  Bob, Fiona, Sheila, Joe, Jane, Al and Dougal followed on and finally all had stood on the summit of An Sgurr and had taken in the spectacular views in all directions.  South to Ardnamurchan, North to Rum and Skye, west to Coll and Barra and East to Knoydart and the mountains of mainland Scotland, much of the ground covered in snow.  Closer in were fishing boats dotted around in the sparkling waters of the Atlantic, and closer still the partially thawed snow picked out the lines of the lazy beds and boundaries of pre-Clearance crofts on the island of Eigg.  The contours made so vivid by the melting snow, the way a pencil picks out the undulations on a tree when doing a bark rubbing.

Everyone gathered back at the bunkhouse, glad to have savoured such unique views – blue skies and snow on the Small Isles on the Mayday weekend.  Dinner was eaten and then after dinner drinks.  Bottles of whisky appeared, which proved so popular that even those “aff the booze” were inclined to try several different drams.  Unfortunately the freak weather had done some damage to the plumbing and during the night the taps gradually dried up in the bunkhouse.  Stuart was on the case, and with the help of fellow islanders managed to fix the problem during the day on Saturday, but it did give some added impetus to get out into the wilds and explore the island.

The Book of Climbs records a Saturday outing:

“A reluctant group set off in the rain motivated by Babs with promise of a coffee and flushing toilet.  We tramped along the tarmac road to Cleadale, persuaded the coffee shop lady to open up, enjoyed al fresco teas and coffees, then proceeded to the Singing Sands beach.  The weather cleared giving us amazing views of the Rum Cuillin ridge and a perfect lunch stop, meeting up with Drummond, Ella and Dougal.  In case we had forgotten we were a hill walking group, Heavy then led us up onto the Sgorr an Fharaidh ridge of Ben Bhuide where we achieved our first top of the day, Dunan Thalasgair, 336m.  The panoramic views were stunning, particularly of  the south end of Skye, the Rum Cuillin and the mighty An Sgurr of Eigg.  Throughout the day, we celebrated Ros’s birthday, she even found a pink buoy at the beach with her name on it.  The return ridge walk along Ben Bhuide belied its lack of height with some stunning rock faces, waterfalls blowing upwards and amazing views.  Hebridean Lassitude had been overcome by some strong leadership from Heavy, with Babs as the motivator.  The whole group was extremely grateful as it was agreed that we had all had a fantastic day, followed by a fantastic evening and meal in the pub.”

Al, Jane and Joe set off for a Saturday morning run along the south side of the island.  Al was wearing his oxymoronically named “barefoot” running shoes (must be a Californian thing!) and decided to return to base after a couple of miles or so.  Jane and Joe continued along the track and past the wee white cottage, then along the path that continues for a mile or two before returning to clamber around on the boulders that dot the slopes and then return eastwards.  By the time they were in sight of Galmisdale they realised that the ferry had arrived, with some Moray Mountaineers on it so ran down to greet them.

They passed a few folk, including Cate, Fiona, Dan, Sheena, and a group of members and hangers on of the Glasgow University Mountaineering Club who were camping on a field between the bunkhouse and the harbour.

Dan and Sheena were drawn to the same peak as the Friday crowd, climbing to the summit of Eigg, An Sgurr before visiting the caves of the south coast – the Massacre and Cathedral caves.

Cate had been to Eigg before and knew a short-cut through the woods to get to the bunkhouse.  She lead Fiona into said woods, straight past the sign that said that the path was closed due to wind-blown trees and associated maintenance and into a disaster area.  The two then spent a long time extricating themselves and finally left the wood where they entered before walking along the road to the bunkhouse.

Jake, on the other hand, had a much better reason for arriving at the bunkhouse long after disembarkation.  When Jane and Joe arrived at the harbour there was nobody to be seen, so they popped their heads around the door of the pub.  Sure enough, there was Jake and Al sitting drinking beer.  Not just any beer, but the beer brewed by Stuart.  It would be doubly rude to not join the party and to not drink the beer brewed by the owner of the bunkhouse so within no time there were four sitting round the table drinking excellent local beer.

To be continued…