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Hot 'n Cold: Nov 06 Gavin.
Off we go...
Friday 3rd November, 3pm, the beginning of my second hot rock
trip. Quite why I had missed so many before defies logic, something about
business, other obligations, basically bullshit. Work is work, reasons not to do
something come and go, but recently I have begun to realise that life’s a hobby.
Determined not to miss any more, I found myself pressing the start button and
heading north. Hot Rock had begun, but to add to the fun I was running the trip
straight into the Rannoch Bothy Meet at Camasunary, Skye. This of course meant
two sacks of gear, ‘hot rock’ and ‘wet hill’.
Friday night, and I was bound for Big Al’s place for a long overdue evening of
beer and banter before heading off to Spain the next day. The pub banter fired
up well, assisted by the company of Shand Boy. And what did we talk about; don’t
remember, don’t care. As was the case many years ago when Big Al and I were
almost neighbours; a good night out was measured in laughter. That night the
keystone was the concept of asking someone “…how loud can you scream the word
HELP!” Not sure why that amused us, but it did.
After a few drinks I became confused about ‘team spirit’. Three Rannoch teams
heading off on the ‘same’(??) hot rock trip to three different locations. OK, it
gets simpler; I learned that two teams had partially become one as C’s team (C,
Jeff, Emily) were now to join our team (Me, Big Al, Rice Boy, and BroadBeam*
Dave J). But no worries, just to keep things complicated, we left from different
airports at different times, and to top it all, on the return trip, C’s team
split up for different planes as Emily flew home to the same airport on a
different plane. Sociable bunch the Rannoch. Got that? Good. Simple.
*More on the BroadBeam bit later.
Although I go way back with Chris and Big Al, I could barely recall even having
met Dave J, so was looking forward to that. At the airport we went through the
introductions and handshakes, but I had done my homework. Dave comes from a wee
village right up the Carse of Stirling (good to shout that at people who live
there), and I had been reliably informed that he takes great pride in seeing 623
Munros from his toilet window, 812 from his kitchen window, and most of the
Italian Dolomites from the Dormer window upstairs (to be fair, only on clear
frosty days). Actually I think it is 14 M points from his front window, and 17
buttocks on the roof mirror in his bedroom, but we’ll stick to the hills for
now.
I was looking forward to introducing the ‘Munro view’ conversation at an
appropriate time during the trip, and making hay with it. But no, Dave stole the
opportunity by stating within 5 minutes of pleasantries at the airport bar “…I
love it there, you know I can see 14 Munros from my house”. Dammit, wrong
footed.
Dave’s a top chap, and was great company. Not only that, he is unique to the
world of modern communications technology. Dave explained to me that he was
considering “one of those BroadBeam connections”. Seems as shame as everyone
else is using Broadband. However it gave us all cause to giggle and poke fun
throughout the Hot Rock Trip.
We arrived in Spain, hired the car, and thundered into France. Yes, of course we
did, this is a Rannoch article: did I not mention flying to one country and
climbing in another?
First morning, 10 miles or so as the crow flies to the first crag. Simple? No.
Like an idiot I left my portable sat-nav behind assuming it would be dead easy
to find. Arse. It took almost an hour.
Le Clape; great place, great rock, loads of routes, but what the hell do I know?
Apparently, according to the company I kept, I still look like I jumped out the
eighties, climb like an eighty year old, and was mesmerised with the sight of
blue skies and warm rock in November. My previous (1st) Hot Rock trip was a -4c
degree snow covered experience above Murcia last January. Global warming? Yeah,
sure, keep the research money going, it pays for the weed they smoke.
So what else happened apart from me nearly dropping Al down 12 feet of crud at
the bottom of the crag – really sorry Buddy, you took it well; I cringe even
writing about it. Moving on swiftly…
Thank God we had an accountant on our team!
That being said, anyone that could master the basics of simple arithmetic would
appreciate the Dean gave us a good stuffing. However, we had qualified
assistance on the matter to confirm what we might otherwise have considered wild
alcoholic delusions of a financial scandal being exercised on us.
 On the first night at the Campanile Hotel our team - me with Big Al in one room,
Chris and Dave J in another. As Al and I can rapidly demolish volumes of beer we
though we’d be fair on our comrades and ensure that the drinks bill was by room,
but we’d share the dinner bill evenly. C’s team joined us at the hotel, and
somehow managed to suggest that his team cover the dinner bill that night.
Seemed reasonable to us, and we thought we would be in to reciprocate the kind
gesture, which we did the next night at a posh restaurant… wait a minute…
screwed.
The Clone Drone:
Now maybe it’s just me, but I found this curious. There was a debate on about
which wine was the best. Jeff semed to be in the middle of all this
orchestrating my bewilderment. Seems normal, seems reasonable, and much the sort
of thing you would expect from the sort of company we kept (C and Jeff – yon
academic serious and culturally polished dudes). OK so far, normal stuff? Yes,
but I strained my eyes to focus on the wine labels under debate; the same damned
wine, two bottles of identical wine. So if they are identical what the hell was
the debate all about. Who knows? Jeff was in full flow, appraising each in turn.
Was it me that had too much to drink, was it Jeff? I can’t remember who Jeff was
even discussing this with, and I know I was not the only one looking on like a
dog being shown a card trick.
This threw my mind into complete confusion. Had Jeff married two identical
women, did he live in two identical houses, was he being watched by two
identically confused and bewlildered Gavs? I spun round in horror to see myself,
thank God it was just a mirror.
Karibiner is a Fuckin French Word (Tube)!
One of the best moments of the trip was when Big Al and I finished a route. We
both stood at the base of the route, and Al looked at me said “did I just leave
a crab up there?”. We checked our racks, not sure if we were down any gear.
There were some guys coming off the route next to ours, they all seemed to be
French although one guy started to whitter to us, could have been Hugh Grant’s
brother. So this is how it panned out:
• Al engages Hugh’s brother: “Excuse me, did I leave a crab up there?”
• Hugh’s Brother: Bewildered look… “A crab?”
• Al: “Yeah, a crab, you know – crab” becoming mildly frustrated
• Hugh’s Brother: Continuing bewilderment… “A crab?”
• Al: “Yeah, a crab, you know – a karabiner crab” holding a karabiner and
clicking the gate in welling frustration.
• Hugh’s Brother: “What, do you mean an animal?”
• Al: “Animal? What? NO! A crab, karabiner, one of these!” pointing at a
karabiner
• Hugh’s Brother: “A karabiner? Sorry… I only learned to climb in France, I live
here now, I don’t know English climbing words”
• AL: Look of complete resignation, palms to sky…“KARIBINER IS A FUCKING
FRENCH WORD!!!! No, I left my pet hermit crab up the crag….. tube”
We never ascertained whether it was a French word or not, who cares. But what a
fantastic exchange. Al; a true Scottish Ambassador, say it like it is!
Other memorable moments in brief:
Full on porn channel, repeat full-on in the Campanile Hotel, Channel 4. Relayed
info to rest of team, apparently Dave was most upset constantly trying to tune
his TV into the wee small hours, convinced we were winding him up. However,
check this, in the morning Channel 4 is a kids cartoon channel, how French is
that?
While wandering around Narbonne Al witnessed a guy in a Merc totally cream a
bollard when reversing out a side street, and then continuing on as had nothing
happened. Top driving.
Skye ~ Camasunary
And so to the Skye, the expensive part of the trip for me as you will soon
learn. What a contrast: from the warm and sunny crags of the Med to the
windswept snow-capped North West Highland coastline, absolutely magic. For me
there is nothing to compare with North West Scotland. I have always found it
heartbreaking to leave the place, but this time I made sure future partings
would be so much sweeter.
My father used to work Locums as a GP throughout the North West Highlands,
especially Durness and Kinlochbervie where I spent much time as a kid. As a keen
walker he’d take me many times onto the mountains, and the likes of Foinaven,
Slioch, and Torridon became so engrained I became addicted to them in later
life. I remember as a 13 year old being hypnotised by giant crags on the side of
Foinaven above Loch Dionard, miles away out of view from the Kinlochbervie to
Durness road. The memory of that crag stuck with me, and I returned to climb it
with John Dunn, Roger Webb, and Brian Mattock in 1986 and we notched up some
good new routes. It was easy as the crag was virtually virginal, and as most of
us guys know, that’s a good memory, albeit often a distant memory.
It was only in my late teens I discovered how totally magical Skye was, and
shall always be. My formative climbing days on Skye were to follow with
Strathclyde mountaineering club, around the 15th June 1980; JD’s birthday, not
sure which, but by God he looked a hell of a lot younger than he did when he was
25!
The routes we ticked on that trip were above Glen Brittle, being blessed with
the memory of Bish and I being projected in a brocken spectre onto passing cloud as
we stood on top of the In-Pin.
So here we were, November 2006, over quarter of a Century later. We were Bothy-bound
as a result of high winds and driving rain, but with stunning breaks of
magnificent sunlight.
It was nice to have the bothy pretty much to ourselves, I say pretty much as we
shared the place with one very strange guy. A bear of a bloke joined us as we
sat round the fire introducing himself by saying “My name’s John, you’ve
probably heard of me (?)”… Who the hell doesn’t know at least 3 Johns, and one
of them flushes! There was something not quite right about this guy. What
concerned me was the fact that, any time during that night, any and all of us
might also become a John, with the surname Doe.
As it turned out Big John was a Whelk (yes, with an ‘h’) hunter, also with an
‘h’. If Bunny Bruce had any very big and ugly relatives, this had to be as close
as it got. In fact, thinking about it, so close, that had Big Al been on the
bothy meet he may have been tempted to urinate into Big Whelky Boy’s car as soon
as we got back to the car park, but that’s another story.
Big Johnny Whelko was whittering to everybody incessantly about his strange and
perverted view of the world. Due credit to C who responded at one stage with
“bollocks!!” when Whelko got his Kosova Muslim thing a bit mixed up. Bold
indeed; he would have had to have come through me first to get to C, that would
have held him up for about 2.5 seconds. Big boy that Johnny Whelko. He stated
that he was proud to be one of Thatcher’s Children. Oh God, what a legacy, no
wonder she had a stroke!
We all made it through the night. In the morning Shaz disappeared off for a call
of nature, closely shadowed (as she found out to her horror) by Johnny Whelko.
Close call indeed, oh, how the rest of us all laughed!
Just a few miles further down the road from the access point to Camasunary is
Elgol. Since the first day I saw the view of Rhum as you enter the high point of
the village of Elgol, then drop to the harbour to see the panoramic view of the
Cuillin I promised myself I would one day either have a house, live here, or
both. Almost by way of a pilgrimage I felt compelled to drive down to the
slipway at Elgol. On the way down Rhona said, by way of a reminder prompt “I
thought you always wanted a house in Elgol?”. I replied lamely that I always
had, but…. (some feckin excuse). “What’s wrong with that then?” she said,
pointing to a For Sale sign. I looked across at the house on the skyline, high
above Elgol. It ticked all the boxes, and (…..blah de blah…) I bought it. An
expensive trip indeed. I am hoping to have access to the house in the last week
of the year, so that means a potentially great Hogmanay. I will keep all Rannoch
and friends posted as all welcome. Either way, there will be a Rannoch-style
house-warming.
Now for the sake of statistics, just in case Dave J is reading this; from my new
house in Elgol I can see 19 Munros, 35 Corbets, 899 Marlyns, and two buttocks in
the mirror on the bedroom ceiling – sadly my own, and that’s lying on my back,
not easy I can tell you!
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