The nights are long, the days are short. Vibrant autumnal colours spread across the landscape and the winds contain the icy stab of winter, as if to remind us of what’s to come. A dusting of snow falls on the tops, a prelude for the bigger, heavier dumps that will follow in time. It is a beautiful time of year, but also a sobering one when the long lazy summer days have gone, to be replaced by the cold dark winter. The sun never rises high in the sky and the mute uncaring mountainsides of winter promise comfort and safety to nobody.
Perhaps that’s why it’s also a party season. The wonderful creative silliness of a fancy dress party acts as the perfect counterpoint to the serious matter of mountaineering as winter approaches. Hugh Munro, Morticia Addams, a Meteor, Marilyn Monroe, a packet of M&Ms, the Mad Hatter, Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx were just a few of the characters who came to this year’s November Weekend Meet in Inchnadamph. Last year coincided with Halloween but this time it had been a full week since that particular festival. It wasn’t enough to be scary, there had to be a theme, and the theme was M. M for Moray, M for Mountains, M for whatever people wanted it to be for.
But I digress. The fancy dress party was not until the Saturday night. Everyone arrived on the Friday, and a fair few folk it was too. 27 people flocked to the bunkhouse, which luckily has space for even more. Saturday was due to be the best day of the weekend so the sensible amongst the party took to their beds at a reasonable hour. One late arrival turned up at about bedtime, so late you’d swear she’d taken a wildly circuitous route to get there, but then made up for it by staying up til 5 in the morning sampling the water of life.
Saturday did indeed dawn fine. Finer than forecast. Whether it was the surprisingly clement weather or the over-indulgence of this country’s national drink the night before that led to the small size of the caving party is anyone’s guess but Dan takes up the story of the Troglodites:
“At least twenty folk said they were going caving on Friday night, but by 9:30 on Saturday morning it was just Dan, Simon and Bob in the carpark. We dumped our bags at the cave entrance and donned our boiler suits – Bob’s being a very new looking garment with a “just ironed” look! The first big part of the cave was familiar, but having progressed uneventfully up “Oxford Street” we sat at the rather narrow and uninviting entrance to the “Farr Series”. Simon (being the largest) was pushed to the front. The crawl may only be 10 – 15m but it was rather low and narrow. However, once through it all opened up into a large passage, with the stream running in another passage below. There were some fine examples of sediment deposits and “moon milk”. With the photos taken we retreated back through to the main ANUS (Allt na Uaine Stream cave) where Bob had waited patiently for over an hour! The afternoon was spent exploring some of the other passages out of the ANUS. It was good to finally see sun again, thoroughly knackered!”
A total of eleven people decided to do a traverse from the road to Kylesku, under the shadow of Quinag, over to Eas a Chual Aluinn and back to Inchnadamph. Eas a Chual Aluinn is reputed to be the highest waterfall in the UK with a drop of over 200m, over three times the height of Niagara Falls. As it turned out, two parties set out – one of five and the other of six. The first party consisting of Sheena, Brian, Kelly, Sarah and Luke, some having a taster of their first MMC weekend meet. They walked into the wilderness and found the waterfall. Despite recent rain it still didn’t quite have the deafening roar of Niagara but it makes up for this by the stark beauty of the scenery. On the walk back to Inchnadamph the group included a visit to the memorial of the plane that crashed on the high gently sloping ground to the north of Conival in April 1941. The plane came down in very bad winter conditions and although some of the crew survived the crash they died later either from exposure or their injuries and were not found until almost six weeks after the crash. They remain buried at the site and have a new memorial dedicated to them which was placed there in 2014. Heavy Whalley was instrumental in the move to replace the old memorial and wrote about the day of its unveiling in his blog. https://heavywhalley.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/heading-for-assynt-for-the-dedication-ceremony-for-the-anson-that-crashed-in-1941/
The second group included some night owls from the previous evening and so left later and took a more sedate pace. Brad, Katie, Jane, Joe, Sheila and Shona walked to the great waterfall of Eas a Chual Aluinn and then followed the long and winding road back to Inchnadamph. A lovely and remote walk over ever changing geology and topography with fine views between the occasional showers. Daylight disappeared all too quickly, but not until they had found a definite path to the bunkhouse.
Karen, Gordon and dog Caley walked up Ben Mor Assynt via Conival. They had great views at times although a navigational error later in the day did lead to a longer day for Gordon and lessons learned for a few people!
Ray, Heavy, Graeme, Alan, Fiona and Jan climbed Breabag, as described by Heavy:
“A grand walk past Conival and its big cliffs. Great views and warm at first. A few stags roaring and a few hinds about. This is a superb traverse for all those who follow the long ridge and corries, with huge scope for winter climbing. A bit of rain but a good descent back to the car at the hatchery.”
Jake and Jenny “set of cycling like a flock of turtles on the great Tour d’Assynt. Jenny set a furious early pace which was inevitably paid for later. Not by the lithe Jenny but the fat anchor she had with her. Glorious round of Assynt via Lochinver, Clach Toll and Dalbeg. A splendid hour was also spent in the company of old friends Claire and Duncan who have fallen off the edge of the world and live in a cave near Kylesku. Marvellous.”
Andy, Ben, Illona and Sue set off for Stoer Point. They enjoyed the best weather of anyone on this meet due to the wise decision of staying clear of the hills. Another wise decision was to leave the ascent of the Old Man of Stoer for another, warmer and less windy day. Having said that, the plan to climb the Old Man may have just been a white lie to encourage young Ben to go for a walk with them. They enjoyed the finest pies from Lochinver Pie Shop on the way back and Ben made up for the lack of climbing later that night by being the best table traverser of the weekend.
The fancy dress party was a hoot and, as hoped, people took the theme and adapted it to all sorts of costumes and crazy ideas. So much effort had gone into the costumes that a best costume award was required. It was put to the ballot and Jenny the Meteor won. However, no sooner had Jenny been awarded the “Best M” when Simon strode in wearing what can only be described as a “Memorable” M-themed costume which produced much mirth and merriment amongst the music, merlot and mojitos.
Sunday started surprisingly clear and those who got early starts were rewarded with fine weather. Some went for walks and Karen felt energetic enough to go for a run. Others unfortunately had hangovers to deal with and an ex-Marilyn Monroe was seen prowling around trying to find make-up remover and failing to find nail varnish remover for his gloriously red nails. A number of people took up Jake’s invitation of a bacon roll in the “Van of Joy” and stayed so long he almost had to start driving to get rid of them.
Assynt is indeed one of the world’s most beautiful places and we are lucky to have it on our doorstep. Next month we will be even closer to home, with the nights drawing in still further and the mercury falling we will be based in Newtonmore for the December weekend. The Christmas bus meet will be to Ben Rinnes and Aberlour and the legendary MMC Hogmanay meet will be at Roybridge. But Assynt will always draw us back. This year we had a summer weekend meet to Elphin and an Assynt bus meet in addition to the meet just past. It is a special place and before long we will return.