The Ascent of Irene's Cwm

Ben Ime

2 January 1987

It is strange how the memory plays tricks. I could have sworn that when I was a bit more regularly present on club trips, the idea of starting out on a winter day's climb before 11 am would have been laughed to scorn. But here we all were assembled in Luss (of all places) at 8.15 am on a morning when the Moray Clubbers of yesteryear would have been seen nodding their heads sagely and intoning, "Ahha, no high ground exploits for you, today, young feller-me-lad. Wind in the west - sleeping bag's best'." In fact, I suppose it's an academic point whether any of them would have been awake at all at that sort of hour...ho hum, what price a tough image?? - but enough of such speculation, and tae oor tale. ...

The usual assortment of hangovers collected in the usual organised chaos. John had been supposed to make the arrangements, but had a bad knee, so Jim N said that he would collect Roni; but Drew got there first; and Albert and Dorothy were expected, but Jim thought they might not have quite understood the message since he had phoned at lam on New Year's morning; and Eric's car developed bright blue flatulence on the way past Balloch, much to Drew's disquiet; and Ronnie and Deirdre arrived with little Michael "'cos we had woken up anyway..." I didn't feel that the Moray Club had changed that much after all.

First stop, Succoth. This was supposed to be the rendezvous and we stopped there, only to see everyone else roaring off towards Rest and be Thankful, so we sped off in pursuit.

Bill said, "Jack (M) is getting on a bit, so we thought we would start from the high point in Glen Croe. "
Jack said, "Bill's not going so well these days, so perhaps we should shorten the trip for him. "

Eric, Ron, Deirdre and sundry others (whom I didn't recognise in the half light at Luss) opted for a route which Eric assured them led, "right through Beinn Narnain", by a series of underground caves. There was a muted snort of disbelief at this from most of those present, who scented another Scott Wild Goose Chase in the offing.

Well, we parked at about 600 feet and started to follow the headwaters of the Croe Water up into the corrie. After a short period the group (which was thirteen strong(ish)) sort of split into two, or three (or even four, depending how you counted it).

In the van was Irene. Well, perhaps I should rephrase that, because she had actually travelled up in a car. What I mean is she was out in front and going like a train (I'm not sure I mean that either, actually). At least, we thought she was, but we kind of lost sight of her. No matter, she was on the summit when we got there.

The rest of that group comprised the scatologists, sexist raconteurs and general ne'er-do-wells that unfortunately have wormed their way into the fabric of the club and lurk in the background eroding the fine name of the organisation (if you can accept that the Chairman lurks in the background).

Further back, spread out like a wee washing, was a small party apparently looking for snow buntings.

Although the route up the hill from the south is perfectly straightforward, it did give us a pleasant outing, mainly because there was plenty of hard snow and ice about. There is something particularly satisfying about cramponing up that sort of surface, where the ice cracks and crunches like a bowl of Corn Flakes as the spikes bite. There's not so much enjoyment in it if you don't have jaggy feet, though, as Marilyn found out (or was there another reason for her and her male escorts taking one hour longer to reach the top ?).

Since leaving the cars the weather had improved considerably, to give a really excellent day. The visibility was so good from the top that we could see other hills. That is probably why I got a wee bit mixed up between the back of the Cobbler and Beinn an Lochain, and Drew thought Ben Lomond was Schiehallion. Still, even the Greatest of Mountaineers can lose the Cairnwell, on occasions.

The solitude of the hill (plus thirteen Moray Club members) was broken when two other climbers arrived. "Happy New Year", Jim whispered into the teeth of a howling gale. There was no reply from the two, who were only about 300 feet away. "Miserable anti-social b******s; they're no gettin' any of my whisky anyway", grunted the offended patriarch. After that we studiously ignored them, particularly when we discovered that they were from England and only up on holiday.

Drew noticed that one of them had a 25,000,000mm lens on his camera, and nearly fell off the hill trying to see what it was that the gent was trying to photograph. From his concentration we guessed that there were scantily-clad girls disporting themselves somewhere around Helensburgh.

Time marched on, and it seemed like a good idea to go back down, although it was such a great day that nobody was in any great hurry.

By this time, Bruce had been up and down the hill a couple of times; probably hustling subs from people. Three drivers were dispatched back to the cars by the ascent route, while the rest of us floundered over the Narnain-Cobbler col. We would have got on a bit faster, except Drew kept kissing every girl he met ("Jist cos it's New Year"). Since this occasionally entailed climbing back up hills that we had just descended, and threatened to take us back to Arrochar via Inveraray, we were forced to restrain him and to drag him off down the Buttermilk Burn back to the Torpedo Station. This route was great as far as the tree line, then I remembered why I had sworn never to go that way again following a previous visit.

Eventually we were reunited with the rest of the party, and rushed off to the Inverbeg for a wee light ale. It was OK, except that the bar doesn't seem as friendly and hospitable as it used to be. Of course, in those days you couldn't actually see the bar for the steam rising from wet breeches, so maybe it was no better then.

At any rate, it was a great day, even in the execution, which is saying something.

Participants:

Jim N, Eric, Drew, Bill, Jack M, Stuart, David, and Stephen, Ron and Deirdre, Marilyn, Irene, Roni, John C, Bruce, some others
Me - Jack Crosbie