5-6 October 2007

Friday night on the 5th of October saw the start of a “Navigation extravaganza” not indulged in for some time by the Club. Locating the Jeremy Inglis Hostel is a challenge in daylight, at night it calls for a “park and walk search” to find the small sign above the door on the narrow frontage of the building.

Saturday morning didn’t deliver the forecasted downpour, just a dreek day with the cloud base at 400m. Evelyne Droege and Amanda Strang took nine hours to bag Ben Sgulaird. This required close navigation to find the summit, giving Evelyne a well deserved confidence boost and her 150th Munro. Bob Macdonald, Dave Galloway, Natacha Mihajlovic and Caroline Chapman went for Ben Cruachan and Stob Diamh, a nine hour round trip from the Railway station. Unable to locate the start as told in the Munro book added to the day’s challenge for Natacha, who navigated from the Dam to the two tops and back in 20 to 25 meters visibility.

Geoff and Ceilia Armitage along with Fingal and Ruari found Island bagging easier; they did a five hour walk around the geomorphologists’ paradise island of Kerrara. A Saturaday night curry rounded the evening off as most people gave self catering a well deserved miss.

Sunday dawned and you wouldn’t believe it was the same weekend: Sunshine and clear skies. Geoff and Celia set off to round their trip via Aberfeldy, Evelyne set of to bag Meall Ghaordaidh, whilst Andy Brooks along with Dave, Bob, Natacha, Amanda and Caroline had another nav ex locating the start of the route to Creach Bheinn. A Cameron Macneish lookalike was seen on the way up and on the summit. The temptation to take in Ben Sgulaird was resisted and a five hour day with perfect visibility was enjoyed by all.

In conclusion, the hostel we stayed at is a backpackers hostel, the free continental breakfast and bed linen was offset by the small kitchen and no common room. However Oban beats Tyndrum for the social.

Dave Galloway