Thursday 23 September 2010

Lets Go Exploring!

For the past three days i've been shadowing Alan Halewood running a three day expedition for the 1st year students from West Highland College.

Our route took us down the Lairig Leacach near Spean Bridge, down into Glen Nevis which presented us with a river crossing of the Water of Nevis before a rough and boggy climb up to our camp for the night in Coire an Lochain, just below Sgurr Eilde Mor.

Passing the Lairig Leacach Bothy

Wet boots anyone?


An early start the next morning saw us making a soggy and sweaty accent onto the main ridge of the Mamores. The group all did excellently and quickly guided myself and Al up Na Gruagaichean, Stob Corie a' Chairn, Am Bodach and Sgurr an Lubhair before we dropped out of the cloud to make camp just above the lochan in the corrie between Sgurr an Lubhair and Stob Ban.

Nice View

No View!

A cloudy camp 2


The final day of our expedition started with a frantic dash to pack tents away before they blew away. Although much clearer and drier than the previous two days a strong northerly wind made for a chilly and very blustery climb up Stob Ban, followed by a quick run along the rest of the ridge before dropping off from Mullach Nan Coirean down to the old vitrified fort. From here a final push along the last section of the West Highland Way brought us back into town by half 2.

Which ways home again?


The guys all did brilliantly and we managed to get three great mountain days, although there may be a few stiff legs and sore feet in the pub tonight (my own included!)

Thanks Everyone!

Saturday 18 September 2010

Two days off, two great days on the hill!

Due to a canceled hospital appointment i found myself with two days off this weekend so decided i'd better make the most of them!

On Friday myself and Sally went for a wee stroll up Aonach Mor and along to Anoach Beag before making a quick decent and catching the gondola back to the car.
Despite having been in Fort William for over two years i was yet to make it to the summit of either of these hill so it made for a lovely day out and we got to see the first snow of the year!







Today was spent with Graham Boistelle (http://boistelle.blogspot.com/) As we're both planing on going for our ML assessment soon we decided to take the opportunity to get a good, foul weather QMD, so we headed down to Bridge of Orchy and made short work of both Stob a' Choire Odhair and Stob Ghabhar  As it turned out the weather wasn't quite as bad as expected (we were devastated, honestly!) and it made for another throughly enjoyable day out!