Rannoch Mountaineering Club
www.climbrannoch.co.uk
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Rannoch Mountaineering Club
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Compleat Bollocks (By Big Al, August 03) Hillwalking for me started in the late 60’s and early 70’s as a means of escape from the violence and gang-culture in Drumchapel where I was being dragged up. Me and my 2 good buddies Lani & Mac* would take Shanks’s pony from the ‘Drum’ up into the wilderness of the Kilpatrick Hills, where we had many enjoyable hours of fresh air, superlager, open spaces, rolls’n’butter, peat bogs, bottles of Scotsmac, cow pats, strong cider and solitude. Until that is, the Clydebank Shamrock, our arch-enemies, sent out hunting parties and we got involved in a running battle with sickening savagery on the bloody slopes of Duncolm. Apart from that, the hills offered us young lads an escape from the grim reality of ‘scheme’ life. *[ recently re-united through the excellent friendsreprehensible.com website] Some Munro memories…… My first ever week away hillwalking in July 1978 with Mac & Davy doing the Grey Corries, Aonachs and Ben Nevis stuff. There was a heatwave all week and we seemed to spend the whole time walking around in a ‘halo of flies’. Nothing to do with all of us being heavy metal heads and Alice Cooper fans, but for the duration of our trip we had an incessant plague of flies buzzing round our heads. Total insanity ensued. Also, in that same year, this time in winter, we were doing the Bidean - Sgreamhach - Beinn Fhada ridge in deep snow and white-out conditions. Our navigation skills were in their infancy to say the least and we took a bearing from Sgreamhach to Beinn Fhada and set out, compass outheld, heads down. Half an hour later, we ended up exactly where we started! Very spooky and I still cannot to this day explain what happened. There were fun and games on Ben Lawers in January ’81, when it became so windy on the hill that we had to lie on the ground clinging onto boulders for dear life, with legs flapping around worryingly, and the rucksacks being ripped off our very backs. Very, very scary. July ’82, a simply idyllic evening on Cairn Bannoch and Broad Cairn after a superb days climbing on Creag an Dubh-Loch. Cougar and Giant if I remember correctly. All followed by Tennents Super and Smirnoff vodka but I can’t remember correctly. An unusual day in September ’89. Camped by the roadside near Ben Klibreck, we were rudely awakened by quite possibly the worst clouds of midges I had ever seen up to that point. We fled the campsite and skedaddled up the hill just to escape the wee biting bassas and were back down from Klibreck by 8.30 am! After a leisurely breakfast in the improved conditions we visited the Falls of Shin to watch the salmon leaping. I’ll always remember one of the party [who shall remain nameless] looking UPSTREAM, expecting the salmon to be leaping down the way! D’uh! After lunch we got bored and went off to do Seana Braigh. A stunning hill and an utterly brilliant day. Unplanned. Unexpected. Unbeatable. Coulags Bothy. Nov ‘89. The birth of the club song during a raucous evening, and the sight of Bunny & Mick the Fish engaged in pugilistics over a woman! A classic night. Followed the next morning by my one memory of beating JD up the hill, mano-a-mano on Maol Chean-dearg. On the way up the hill I deliberately dropped a 5 pence piece. It hit JD on the back of the head, and he scrabbled in the dirt to pocket it, giving me the valuable time I required to distance myself and bag the hill first. I admit it, a shocking piece of bastardmanship. But, hey, anything goes on the hill, it’s dog-eat-dog out there! The time? - December ’91. The hill? - Slioch. The easy bridge crossing? - dunno we missed it….. an epic river crossing in spate conditions? - read on….. …..Myself, Maureen and Shandboy had missed the bridge on the way up Slioch, [cue jokes about ‘Nam and the ‘Gooks’ having blown it up etc]. We followed the river up the hill until the point where we think we can get across. It is a raging torrent but not too deep. Me and Mo did the sensible thing and removed our boots and tied them on to our sacks then struggled across the flow together. Shandboy? No. No. No. He took his boots off and tossed one of them across the stream, it landed safely. Phew! He chucks the other one…..it lands on the other side…….then starts to r-o-l-l s-l-o-w-l-y down a wee slope……and into the torrent….and starts to float downstream. OH SHIT! Just picture it. Shandboy scrabbling barefoot and panic-stricken across the icy boulder-strewn water as his boot [right one I think] floated merrily away, bobbing about playfully, almost in slow motion, taunting him. With a desperate last minute belly-flopping lunge he snatched the laces just before the boot went ‘doon the watter’ and into Loch Maree. If there had been a panel of comedy judges set up on the banks of the river that day, they would have shown 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0’s all the way. TOP TOSSING! Shandboy deservedly got the Rannoch ‘Mug of the Year’ award, indeed, I think it was his third award in a row…..so he got to keep it. It’s a shocker to admit that between 1994 and 2002 I didn’t do a single new Munro, and it has to be said, not much rock climbing either, apart from Hot Rocking that is …..no regrets, but I guess it must’ve been something to do with the kids arriving on the scene….however things got rekindled again after the 2002 Dinner with ‘Cuillin Skunk’ and then when I acquired the ‘Thousand Yard Stare’ and finally got over the ‘Penultimate Meall’. I’m really looking forward to September 13th on Beinn Ime. Here’s hoping for a great day……with no gang fights, no flies, no white-outs, no wind, no reversing yellow-bellied salmon, no dog-eat-dog, no boot tossing……and I nearly forgot……no socks and no vests! Big Al. |
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