Thursday, July 14, 2011

Club Meet to Scourie

As often the case for a club meet on the July holiday weekend the venue was the Far North, in this case the village of Scourie and its fine campsite. Despite the 5h drive, most people made it in time to enjoy at least some of the warm evening and an excellent sunset over the island of Handa. The prospects were good.
Friday night's sunset
On Saturday the early team of Ed, Stu, Juliette, Mikey, Ann and John set off for the full N-S traverse of Foinaven, taking advantage of the ability to position transport at each end. Early sea fog was no deterrent as there were patches of sun and only a thin cap of cloud on the summit. The squelch through the bog was very muggy and as we carried on up the lower-level cloud seemed to be merging with the higher level, and there was not a view to be had. A couple of hours saw us on the first top and a slightly early elevenses.

Then off to the summit, making sure we took in each end of the short ridge as our collection of maps of various vintages were somewhat contradictory. This was the scene of some is it/isn’t it a Munro shenanigans a few years ago, which settled the height at 911m. Undeterred, Big Mikey saw fit to elevate the top of the cairn to the magic 3000ft level at least temporarily.

Mikey Munrohand
Harry Potter even put in an appearance
First lunch consumed, the traverse of the rest of the hill was uneventful and reasonably pleasant, but almost totally lacking in views. That was until a short but very sharp shower hit just before a steep descent and turned the quartzite into a slippery nightmare.
Easy scrambling section of the Foinaven traverse
The long walk-out was just that, although we did have something to look at as we finally dropped out of the cloud.
Let's hope this was them only part-finished
The tardy party of Denis, Robert, Jillian, Chris, Naomi and Snowy the Dog (14) tackled the nearby pointy peak of Ben Stack. No report or photos of this so far, but they seemed to have a nice time.
Duncan, Kate and Owen went on an enjoyableexploration of the North Coast, possibly as far as Smoo Cave.

Meanwhile, now back at basecamp, Juliette and John got suited up and held the inaugural outing of the AMC Wild Swimming Section in Scourie Bay. To my knowledge this is the first new AMC Section since the heady years of the mid 1990s saw the creation of the Piracy Section (slogan: Avast Behind) and the mercifully short-lived Naked Caving Section (slogan: A Vast Behind).
Aquanauts are go!
As befits a selection of good days out, the evening brought an extensive BBQ that was remarkable for the lack of midges but in keeping with tradition it did get a bit damp later.


Snowy eyeing up his car-bone-ara
Sunday brought more iffy weather and the departure of much of the meet who didn’t have the Holiday Monday. Duncan, Kate and Owen left for the circuit of Stac Polly, while Mikey, Ed and Ann did the Corbett of Glas Bheinn, just E of Quinag. I’m told it was a good outing, if a little damp.

The AMC WSS got even wetter, this time in the much wilder setting of Loch an Obain. A difficult approach was worth it for the flying over a kelp forest on a strong tide, surrounded by inquisitive seals. Stu diverted himself with a visit to a nearby hill lochan, Denis went botanising at Inchnadamph, while Chris, Naomi and Snowy headed north for a coastal walk. Robert and Jillian were last seen enjoying a lazy breakfast.

Sunday's swim site
Sunday evening brought constant heavy rain, followed on Monday by more rain and low cloud. The remainder of the meet packed up soggy tents and headed home, damp around the edges but happy.

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