Another year passes by and the annual trip to Glencoe in Scotland is now over. A fantastic week of hill walking and mountaineering, topped of with evenings in the pub - Clachaig and Laroch, finishing with a meal and a few beers at the MacDonald Hotel in Kinlochleven.
I survived and I think I actually did better this year ( this is my 7th trip to Glencoe ); just for once I didnt get cramp on day one climbing the snow and ice or later in the week coming down the scree sided mountains. I even managed to get back to the car park first on day 1 with the youngsters.
Fitness seems to be the thing, so all that hard work in the JJB Gym in Telford between December and April really did pay. When you are ascending mountains from sea level to over 3000 ft and going vertical, its great not to be out of breath.
So roll on the rest of the year - must get to the Brecon Beacons as I have a waterproof map not used. Also some more hill in North Wales and some wild camping.
The itinery I completed during the week went as follows:
Maunday Thursday drove 9 hrs to Scotland. Helped put up tents, then a beer in the pub.
Easter Friday - climbed Stob Coire Nan Lochan via a scramble up Gearr Aonach - got slightly stuck on the rocks at one point as I could get my leg over a rock piece - assistance from Charlie and laghter from the others helped a bit!
Easter Saturday - a new mountain, whilst one group scrambled the Buachaille, myself and a few others decided to do a monster of a long hill opposite that we drive past every year, Beinn a Chrulaiste - it might not be a massive Munro but it still reaches its pinnacle of 857 metres making it a Corbett and the climb was as long as most Welsh and English mountains. It was a long and hard day, especially as there were no paths and we descended near the Kings House and had to walk several miles over heather back to Altnafeadh to the car. A great time was had however and young Richard demonstrated rock moving on the top - apologies to ordnance survey if the height of this mountain went up a bit this year.
Easter Sunday Chris and Annaleene decided that as they were going back to England on Monday they would like a trip up Ben Nevis. Whilst most of the others had a short day on Stob Ban on the Mamores or a day climbing, we three did the hard slog up Ben Nevis. OK thank god we took our ice axes and crampons, also that we were equiped for full blown winter conditions.
The day turned out to be an epic. Half way up the zig zags on the tourist tracks we put on out crampons whilst fools in trainers continued up over the ice. Then going up we spotted so many people turning back and then struggling to descend on the ice.
On top we had to navigate in a whiteout with about 10 metres or less visability right across the plateau to the summit. Took a great picture of a belay point and where the cornice had been broken by some climbers.
On the top I gave one of my good turns for the day - a hot drink to a walker who had reached the top, freezing with no gloves or hot drink. Soon had him smiling and then on his way down.
After our photos we took the bearing and then it hit! Horizontal ice rain, 30 - 40 mph winds, storms!. As I navigated us down to the top of the Red Burn to take a short cut down, we met a mountain rescue guy - they had been sent up to help get people down as the weather was unpredicted and they had worries over loss of life. he had 3 guys with him he was guiding down and he left them with us and we brough them down so he could carry on helping on top. Chris, Anna carried on down while I assited a young asian chap, in hoody, trainers, get down the path - gave him poles and walked and talking him down the Red Burn path to the bottom zig zag. His friends who brough him up were useless and had abandoned him. Met one of the friends later who made a comment that his boots were wet - felt like telling him to go and buy proper boots before going on a mountain like this! Still it felt really good that we had a good day and we were prepared for the Ben and all it could throw at us.
Easter Monday I had the day off and had a walk around Fort William - bought myself some sealskin gloves - was not happy changing gloves on the Ben the day before.
Tuesday - You wouldnt believe it by everyone wanted to go up the Ben, so I did Ben Nevis Again! Twice in 3 days - still I was able to try out my new gloves. Also, the weather was a bit better. Still had to navigate across the plateau up and down on bearings as we couldnt see, but left it to the Explorer Scouts - felt like a day off for me. Charlie and Fionna decided to have a race back to the car on the way down - dont think they will do this again, Fi fell and ended up hobbling the last couple of miles. Tuesday night I popped to the Laroch to watch the football - marty as i walked a mile or so there and back - nearly fell asleep during the game.
Wednesday, I decided that it would be my last days walking as I would need a days rest before the drive home. So we did another new mountain and an interesting one. A group of us decided to meet eveyone else at the Ice factor in Kinlochleven by 3pm but instead of driving we decided to climb a mountain at the rear of the Aonach Eagach Ridge which towers above the town - Garbh Bheinn - 867 metres. What a day and what a climb- we went super fast, virtually straight up from Caolasnacon - its was great fun - also when Richard Parkes pointed out what I was climbing on on the way of the summit - when I looked back I almost had heart failure, still nipped back up so Rich could get a photo of me on the exposure bit. We arrived at Kinlochleven at the Ice Factor for 3pm smack on time and I pigged out on burger and chips - felt great. If you want to see a picture/video I have uploaded some taken on the day. 
Thursday the rest of the group did Ben Starav whislt Chris and I had a rest, but we also took down the mess and cook tents ready for sunday.
Roll on next year.