It was a weekend of sun and then definite sogginess! But the evenings were lovely and clear and the moon was out so we peered outside in an attempt to identify the “planetary parade” on show (Jupiter was identified with the most confidence). Fiona R was good enough to bake shortbread at the hut, so we had lovely evenings of freshly baked goods as well – what a treat!
On Friday Mike and Fiona played up on Sgurr a’ Mhaim and the Devil’s Ridge. Pauline and David were up on Meall nan Tarmachan, with snow to practice sliding on near the summit. Martha met up with Alison C at the Achallader farm car park. They headed up the col between Beinn Achallader and Beinn an Dothaidh and then contoured round to summit Beinn Mhanach and its top, Beinn a’ Chuirn. They had a great day with snow flurries and sunshine, got a free exfoliation provided by a graupel shower, and some lovely views on the summits. After the walk, Alison headed north to a different meet, whilst Martha headed south to the Inverardran hut in Crianlarich.
Saturday was forecast to be pretty good, so most were up relatively early, and managed to snag some sunshine. Waking up to a slightly changed weather forecast, Mike, Fiona, Anna B, Lisa P and Martha drove north to promised (and delivered!) sunshine in Glencoe. They ascended Bideam nam Bian via the zigzags, and enjoyed great views from Stob Coire nam Beith before heading over to Stob Coire Sgreamhach. They had originally planned to descend via the Lost Valley, but a >20 folk strong group from a university mountaineering club had created a bottleneck situation making very slow progress down the steep and corniced slopes. The 5 EMCers decided to descend via the SE ridge to the Lairig Eilde, and Mike managed to hitch a ride back to the car with a group of walkers from Leeds.
Claire “I bit off more than I could chew” set of early, setting out to traverse the entire line of hills south of Crianlarich starting at the Ben More end. She had a very localised (personal?) black leaky cloud directly overhead when everyone else seemed to have blue skies! Meanwhile Pauline, Dave, Sue and Rhi had set off directly from the hostel up Cruach Ardrain. Rhi delighted in the bog-fest of a forest on the ascent (not sure the delight was shared). We had f’lunch* in the sun on the way up, enjoyed the frozen snow higher up, and happily bumped into Claire and her personal cloud just after the summit, which allowed us to enjoy s’lunch* in the sunshine on the ridge to Beinn Tulaichean, before heading to the pass to Benmore Glen. Claire headed down after Cruach Ardrain and was good enough to scoop us up and back to the hostel (thank you I also bit off more than I could chew!). Dave chose to walk back along the road (missing the handy disused railway which runs alongside it).
Meanwhile Gill and Cathy spent a lovely day on Beinn Chaorach catching up on more than a decade of not walking in the hills together, Colin S and Andrew T headed over to Ben Lui and Mark D and Keith headed to Beinn Challium, all managing to get some sunshine in their days.
Sunday was wall to wall rain. Claire, Anna B and Lisa managed a walk at the Falls of Leny with Claire in wellies. It was a great day to be out kayaking, they chatted to a large group who were doing laps of the increasingly rapid rapids! Overall a cracking Friday/Saturday and a washout on Sunday.
A fantastic meet (and the last, for a while for me), an absolute delight to be out in good company and enjoying generous baking 🙂
*when googling “flunch” and “slunch” an EMC meet report is the first hit, so I can only imagine we are the originators of calling our first and second lunches this!
