Last month’s walk: Beinn Heargarnich.

Walkers: Alan, Graham, Harry, Inness, David and Di.

I’m afraid that those of you who missed this walk missed a cracker. We had a beautiful day for it as can be seen in the photos on the website. The -19C wind chill didn’t materialise as the wind wasn’t nearly as strong as forecast and apart from one small snow shower that lasted all of 2 minutes, we had clear blue skies. There was a lot more snow than anticipated too.

Five of us squeezed into David’s car and drove up to Killin where we met Harry who had come over from Rannoch.

The Munro book definitely says that cars can be driven up to the highest point on the private road between Glen Lochay and Glen Lyon if the gates are open. We, unfortunately parked at the bottom of the road in Glen Lochay and didn’t really pay much attention to what we were doing and walked up the road so we could have saved an hours walk at the start and again at the end. We didn’t notice on the way up but did notice on the way down that there wasn’t even a gate that shuts, duh!

We were right up at the snow line when we left the road and started to follow the river that would take us up to a wee lochan that lies just below the summit. We made a very slow pace as the snow was very soft to start with and we soon lost our handrail when the river disappeared below the white blanket. With no river to follow we picked a line higher up to the right rather than climb right up into the corrie and eventually topped out onto the broad ridge where we had lunch before the final 300/400 feet to the summit. The snow was much firmer at the top and we made the summit in a not particularly fast 5 hours.

We took the beautiful views in for 10 minutes or so before starting the decent. We found that we could walk down some pretty steep slopes by just digging our heels in, slopes that would have been too steep if there had been no snow and we had the usual heather and hidden holes and boulders to stumble through. But with the firm snow we walked right over the top of it all.

There were a few other groups around. The most peculiar of which were two guys who were on skis and were strapped to small parachute type things and were blown up the hill almost to the summit before skiing back down again. We got back down to the road in two hours and really could have done without the other hour back to the cars.




This month’s walk: Sunday 20th April 2008

Unless anybody else requests a hill to climb I make no apologies for picking Munros that I have not done so for April, it’s to be Beinn a’ Chochuill and Beinn Eunaich. They can be found on OS Landranger 50 (Glen Orchy). The starting point is a couple of miles past Dalmally at GR137288. The Munro book says 2hr 50mins to the first one and 4hrs to the second so there will be plenty of time for the usual blethering, telling jokes and eating multiple lunches. It’s a wee bit further to go than last month but as we will pass ‘The Green Welly Stop’ will at least get a Bacon Roll this time.
I know that it’s difficult to commit yourself too far ahead but in order to organise cars please contact me to book your place by Thursday 17th April at the latest.

Other stuff:

There has been one (sensible) suggestion for a club motto. Harry suggested “Up for it” which translates into “Suas air a thon” in Gaelic. Any other suggestions anybody? If not I guess we’ll go with “Suas air a thon”

The website is now up and running www.bemac.org Anybody who wants walk photos posted please either e mail them to me or send prints and I will scan them. The Beinn Heasgarnich photos are a compilation of mine, Inness’s and David’s.
Perhaps different people might like to write the walk report from time to time to get a different perspective on things.


Alan