C’s big 60. (By Rhona, June 5th 2006, Images courtesy of Shaz: click to enlarge)

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They came from far and near, east, west and south, by car, train and bus all converging in the north-west for what promised to be the event of the year.  The forecast was fabulous. For the whole of Scotland bar the north-west! With a spectacularly bad forecast for Torridon. However, it was dry and bright when we arrived at the pub and began the party. First up was Gav with a 5-hour drinking head-start on everyone, although Mary came in at a close second in her scalloped top and a 4-hour drinking history. In the highly competitive environment that is the Rannoch there was a mad scramble to catch up and in the next few hours the playing field was levelled although some reached the state of hysteria just as others were slipping into hangover mode. Wheels spinning on loose gravel at midnight we returned the bar to the locals and set off into the dry but dark night. Within minutes the drizzle was smirring across the windscreen and by the time the carpark was reached the wipers were on super fast. The next 5 minutes sorted out true members from groupies as some screamed to a halt, jumped out with a single well packed rucksacks and set off into the night while others decided to re-pack, re-arrange, re-dress and re-sign themselves for a weekend of chaos. For once Shaz was in the former and looked smug as she waited for the less organised pilot who had temporarily mislaid head torch and music system. The boot was soon on the other foot though as she stumbled and staggered across the road asking if her head torch was on. It took a long time to persuade her that the clue was in the darkness. The rest of the evening unravelled in a blur of hysteria, chaos and innuendo climaxing in rant against the inequities and indecencies of the SMC member’s room.

The cake

The morning dawned as predicted hangovers were aplenty and enthusiasm had plunged new depths. The weather looked ok until leaving the shelter of the doorway into driving and horizontal rain. A true northwest day. Plans were re-assessed and the B-team stole the A-team hill plan with a late start on Beinn Alligan. Not to be outdone the A-team made up a whole new plan of doing nothing, the novelty of which paled after a few hours. Even a walk back to the car for several tons of party supplies couldn’t deflect the guilt of doing nothing. So at 3.30 on the dot the A-team set off for a wee “dauner” (though this time Mary and her charger were left behind).  Scaling the waterfall path the first wobbly appeared at the first small burn crossing, at the 2^nd medium burn crossing the wobbly was bigger but it was the 3^rd large burn that led to a full scale tantrum and withdrawal of the A-team B-subsection. Nae luck Shaz, well done Gav always the gent! That left the A-Team Super A-plus section. 3^rd time lucky, all impediments gone we set off at speed for the end of the path. In the highly competitive environment that is the Rannoch, neither of us could call an end to the “dauner”. So at the end of the path a bearing was taken in the mist, the slope was climbed legs were tiring, light was fading, a lochan and another bearing, then several false summits later the tick was ticked! Ho ho! A super fast decent got us below the mist to views of lower Torridon glen, a sprint to the bothy got us in just in time for dinner. Precision timing, the work was done and all that was left was to eat, drink and be merry.

The dinner was excellent – well done all the cooks and organisers – non-vegetarian chicken rogan josh was quality. The pudding was meringue or a meringue? The humour was lacking in subtlety but that’s how we like it and Colin even told a joke, but we’ll let him off as it was his birthday.