Knoydart - Sgurr Mor to Sgurr Na Ciche

8th August 1987

Never before had I seen this rugged and uninhabited part of the Scottish Highlands; Knoydart fulfils the desire to find a place where man has made little impression.

On the Friday night our tents were eventually pitched beside an old deserted tin house near Strathan Farm, at the head of Loch Arkaig.

The 'tin house' near Strathan

Myself, Paul, John and Stephen and new member Colin, slept soundly after a tiring drive from Glasgow. Originally we had made the mistake of driving as far as upper Glendessary until an angry farmer and the great Scottish midges chased us back to Strathan. The midges also slept soundly and were hovering about in the early morning sunshine, waiting for their breakfast to emerge form the tents. Colin being the first morsel.

We met the others, who had camped down the road a little from us, after breakfast, and we decided to do the Sgurr Mor - Sgurr na Ciche ridge. It would be a long day; an estimate of 7 o’clock on the top of Sgurr na Ciche with a three hour walk back to the tents puts the outing into perspective.

The weather was perfect, the walk through to Glen Kingie warming us up for the slog up to the col and onto Sgurr Mor. Then it all lay below us, a friendly gesture of greeting.

The ridge at last!

With a warm sun and cotton wool clouds giving a peaceful and relaxing feeling that only a day in the hills seems to bring, the day ahead touched the horizon as we dropped down to Sgurr Beag.

Sgurr na Ciche - our destination

We continued along the ridge until we reached Sgurr nan Coireachan where the party split up, the ones who had had enough headed back for a long walk to the tents.

The 'rough bounds' of Knoydart

Some clouds floated around us, golden from the rays of the warm afternoon sun. We took a bite to eat and started off toward Garbh Chioch Mhor. It took ages to walk this part of the ridge, or maybe it was just because I was feeling tired and couldn’t concentrate on time.

We rested our weary and hungry bodies near the summit; I lay back against a huge piece of flat rock and closed my eyes. Taking deep breaths, I listened to the slow wind and the others chatting away while sorting out the food rations. As usual Paul had no emergency grub and had to be subsidised!

From the summit of Garbh Cioch Mhor we could look out to splendid views past Loch Nevis and could clearly make out the Island of Eigg, floating on a hazy shimmering sea.

Garbh Cioch Mhor with Island of Eigg in the distance

Following a small stone wall, we headed for Sgurr na Ciche; the sun baked down on us and as I had run out of water, I could hardly wait to reach the stream running from Sgurr na Ciche to the col. We eventually reached the col, deposited our rucksacks and after a drink and a bar of chocolate, scurried up to the summit of Sgurr na Ciche.

Sgurr na Ciche summit - 7pm

Loch Hourn peeped out through scattered white clouds below us. It was a great feeling of achievement just standing there looking at where we had come from (which reminded us how far we had to walk back).

View back along the ridge to Sgurr Mor

We sat at the col and sorted something to eat. I still had loads of food left to sustain me back to the tents. Paul was the only one who had not a thing left. (Roni gave him a salad roll which he gobbled before heading down).

It was a long walk now in darkness back to the tents. For a while we walked in silence before starting a sing-song to keep our minds off the miles. We arrived back at the tents after eleven o’clock in the evening and cooked our well-earned dinner and drifted off to sleep……..

David Lockhart.

The Vair Pair

Beinn  A' Bheithir

Sunday 3 May 1987

Jack and I arrived at Luss car park around 8.30am to find Margaret Joyce, Graham Duff, Evelyn Reid, Graham Pearson, David Lockhart and friend Paul all ready and eager to go. After Margaret had decided whose front seat she was going to travel in we set off for Ballachulish.

Bill Gray had arranged to uplift Kenneth, Ronnie and Gail and would meet up with us at West Laroch which we reached around 10.00 am. We parked the three cars by the bridge over the river Laroch at the foot of the road which leads up to the school, the playground of which is accessible and provides more suitable parking space for walking in this area! Bill Gray and party arrived around 10.30 am and the group of twelve set off up the road which is the start of a "right of way" track to Glen Creran.

Leaving this road at the school we were soon gaining height rapidly up the side of the N.N.E. Ridge of Beinn Bhan. However, around this point the group was reduced to ten as Ronnie decided to descend with Gail who was feeling unwell, and settled for a low level walk. The main ridge and snow level was reached and though it was a dry day, the chill wind soon had most of us (except Kenneth) reaching for waterproofs to retain the body heat generated on the ascent.

The cairn on Sgorr Bhan (3104 ft) was reached around 1.15 pm and after a brief stop for eats, drinks and pictures, we set off down the S.W. ridge to the col at 3248 ft, then up the beautifully corniced curving East Ridge to our highest top of the day, Sgorr Dhearg (3361 ft).

The views from its white trig-pillared top were superb, the hills to the south, Glencoe to the east, and across Loch Leven to the Mamores and Ben Nevis, all showing up well.

On leaving this top our route took us down the W.S.W. ridge to the Bealach at 2450 ft.

While Jack and I lingered there a while, charging our batteries, the rest of the party pushed on up the climb to our final top of the day, Sgorr Dhonuill (3284 ft).

By the time Jack and I were on the final scramble to the Cairn, Bill and the rest of the "fell runners" passed us on their way down (perhaps they had a table booked at the Drover's Inn at Inverarnan?).

From the cairn the views again were impressive, across the Firth of Lorne & Loch Linnhe to Mull, Morven and Ardgour.

Having spent over half an hour taking in the surrounding scenery we retraced our steps to the bealach and descended south to the Glenduror Forest where we spent a frustrating time making our way across a raft of felled trees (complete with branches) to gain access to the forest track. This we followed east for half a mile to reach a forest fence with a stile, thereafter a reasonable path led us 3 miles back to our car.

The "Beinn A' Bheithir Horseshoe" surely brought "Good Luck" to this outing. The good weather, pleasant company and magnificent scenery made the eight mile circuit all very much worthwhile.

John Hastie

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