Part 1 – The Adventures of Adele and Alistair
The Weekend Meet Report hasn’t yet made it off the printing press but Alistair Jeffs has kindly supplied a report of his and Adele’s wanderings on the weekend meet.
Months ago Adele planned to bag the Glen Affric Munros with some with wild camping thrown in. As the day approached the weather continued to look persistently bad but having considered various options we stuck to our guns. In the end, I’m all for bad
weather, low confidence forecasts as they serve to keep the less committed away and we mostly enjoyed the fine weather of the Affric Hills to ourselves.
We set off from the Mullardoch Dam at 1500 with our big, heavy bags of excitement. As the bit of Clag lifted, we enjoyed fine views in every direction including downwards at an array of wild flowers (Lousewort, Milkwort, Butterwort, Tormentil, Harestail Cottongrass, etc). The enjoyment of our ascent was increased with a
big lump of Robert’s (friend of Adele’s nfi) very delicious fruit cake. Miso Soup was offered to wash it down – umm not for me Sir thanks.
We ambled along the ridge over spot height 1129, conveniently placed to allow a descent to Am Socach 1 and onto to the Coire for our camp. The ground was saturated but by 2300 we found a relatively flat, dry grassy knoll. Having done all the usual wild camp
things I got my swede down. The next thing I heard was a tent zipper at 0400. The following morning it turned out to be Adele’s first shovel recce of many. Unfortunately she had caught some sort of bug. Luckily, she had very recently attended the Ladies’ Feshiebridge Mountain experience and was able to refuse my offer of extra tissues as it is traditionally vogue to use the readily available moss.
Though this does raise an ethical question in the light of the allegedly sexist “Music to Watch Girls Go By”, why in this age of equality wasn’t the Feshiebridge Experience open to all gender types. Part of this experience was to watch Girls coming dancing over the
brae and I’m sure that the Boys could have appreciated this aspect of mountaineering just as well.
The next day we enjoyed further fine views (including over to the Cullins), mostly separately as I strolled ahead by about 100m ahead to avoid any collateral yakking incidents. We completed the fine ridge walk of Chrysanthemum and the other two which was followed by a descent via the Coire rough, boggy path. For future reference, with hindsight, it would have been better to have descended on the An Socach 2 spur.
We arrived at Strawberry Cottage to meet Jake on OP OVERLEE bringing in the welcome comfort bags.
The next day we had an amazing walk doing Carn Eige and the other two (rewarded with ice-cream) but I’m sure others will raconte the adventures of the Saturday.
Having discussed the benefits of Ladies in the Mountains during our hike, I have now completely changed my shirt on doing a second round of Munros. A second round of bagging will be completed using the Nan Shepherd technique. If one can see the Munro summit looking upside down through their legs then it is bagged. This has the advantage of concurrently checking the nethers for ticks – thank you Jake for removing the one from my upper bottom.
Part 2: The adventures of David et al
Maurice and David. Mam Sodhail, Carn Eighe, Beinn Fhionnlaidh and An Socach. Met early morning at the end of the Glen Affric road. I got to test out my new orange bike with fat tyres – no more ladies bike for me! Cycled in to Strawberry Cottage and Maurice set up his tent. Started alongside Loch Affric and up to the summit of Mam Sodhail. Continued along the ridge in fine weather over to Beinn Fhionnlaidh. Back along the ridge and noticed we had some time to spare. Decided to head along to An Socach and back to Strawberry Cottage. A fantastic day in great weather. Unfortunately my neck was peeling for a week after due to sun burn.
David, Dianne and Brent. An Socach (again), Mullach na Dherigain and Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan. Cycle to Alltbeithe hostel where we were invited in by the warden for coffee. We then headed up to An Socach (yes the same An Socach as what I did yesterday). We met Alan and Fiona at the top, they were headed over to Mam Sodall. We then headed down the bealach and over to Mullach na Dheragain where the rain started. Over to Sgurr nan chrysanthemum and then back down for a cycle back to the cottage. A day with mostly great views with a one crash of thunder heard.