Manse Barn, Glencoe

Present: Dave Whittingham, John Evans, Colin Maddison, Duncan Lee, Andrew Croughton, Mark Wiltshire, James Richardson, Pete Bannister, Colin Urmston and myself. (Brief appearance Saturday evening: Dave Kenyon)

 

It's incredible that I encouraged those coming to this meet to take the Friday off as Fridays are always the best day of the week. Well on this particular Friday we had torrential rain from morning till evening and typically rising temperatures. Needless to say not much was done on Friday apart from team DWJE who attempted to climb at Corie nan Lochan but where turned back by the Friday morning blizzards. With the whole evening in front of us the few intrepid pioneers discovered the pub on the other side of the car park was selling beer at £1 a pint and it was amazing how good Tetley's can be.

Saturday: saw some activity on the Ben, team MWPB did Ledge Route with an interesting variation up a 30ft chimney, team CUAM failed to complete Tower Scoop and team CMDL simply turned back after the long slog up to the CIC hut and did some rock climbing in Glen Nevis, I think in big boots. The rest of the group attempted to sneak up on to The Mamores from the south but the streams where anything but a trickle and calls for a retreat to the Clachaig Inn where made. However not all was lost the final mission of the day was to finish that barrel of Tetley's. It happened all too quickly and much to our surprise down went the Guinness to £1 a pint. Without mentioning names the number of pints drunk per person that night varied from 3½ to 13½ .

Sunday: CMDL climbed North Ridge on the Buachaille which had some slush on the upper section, AC went to Clachaig using up many rolls of film and the rest of us marched up to Corie nan Lochan where various snow plods where made to the top of Stob Coire nan Lochan in the only dry interlude of the weekend. The rain got most of us on the descent.

Al Metelko