Glencoe Forum Meet

The weather forecast for the weekend in Glencoe wasn't great, with heavy rain forecast and some stiff winds coming in for Friday and again Sunday. But the hope was for a fairly dry and settled day for early Saturday, with a small window of clearer weather, but deteriorating later in the day.

I left home just after the rush hour had passed on the M60 on a very wet Friday morning for the 312 mile drive to Glencoe.

It was a hard drive north with driving winds and heavy rain as forecast for most of the journey, only easing as I reached the southern Highlands.

My second and last stop of the drive was at Loch Lomond

Almost there, the wonderful Glencoe

A minutes drive from the hostel

Seven hours later I arrived at a quiet hostel around 4.30pm, to be met by yorksgal, Summit and snakehips, who'd already settled into the place.

After a quick chat and a catch up from our previous meetings we headed out down the lane while still daylight, to walk the half mile or so to the 'Boots Bar' of the 'Clachaig Inn' where we'd meet local man sparnel and his wife for our evening meal.

The walk is well worth it, as It's a great pub, full of outdoorsy folk, It has a great atmosphere not to mention great food like the Haggis Tatties and Neeps, a choice made by snakehips on this evening, although sparnels order got mixed up a little. You pay at the bar, get a ticket and when your table number is shouted out in a broad Scottish accent you collect the food from the bar and bring it back to your table, sort of self service.

The bar also has live music at weekends from about 9.00pm.

apologies to Sparnel and his wife, I didn't get a snap of us all together.

From left to right, snakehips, yorksgal, Summit and me, jontea.

After a couple of pints of Loch Lomond, and a few good laughs, the long day was telling on us all, and with an early start for the Ballachulish horseshoe in the morning, the group said farewell to Sparnel and his wife, who were unable to join us for the walk.
With head torches on, we made our way back along the pitch black lane to the hostel, twenty minute away, finishing with a quick brew before bed.

A quick brew before bed

Unusually our five bed room had a double bed in it, which had been quickly bagged by snakehips on arrival, I think he fell in love with this bed over the weekend, while the rest of us settled into our standard bunk beds, still chatting until we dropped off one by one. Some of the best conversations, one liners and laughs are from a hostel bunk bed after lights out, and Friday night didn't disappoint.

snakehips double bed, he did love his bed.

In spite of Snakehips loving his big double bed, he is an early early riser and sure enough he was up out of bed by 5.30am making a brew in the hostel kitchen.

Reluctantly, I was up next followed by yorksgal and summit. A cold shower wasn't the best start to the day, I could hear summit screaming from the other side of the hostel, 

but it was refreshing!!!

By 7.00am (extremely early for a hostel meet) we were all having breakfast, making pack ups, drinks and busy sorting our gear for the days hike.

The plan was to take two cars, and park one in South Ballachulish (the end of the walk) then all head back to the start point in Ballachulish itself in the other car. This would save about 3 miles of road walking at the end of the day.

The weather looked promising, overcast but dry and mild for October thanks to hurricane Ophelia, but breezy.

We were actually kitted and ready to walk for 8.50am!!! Unbelievable.

Our route would take us out of the village south, passing the school, before heading west up the steep and boggy side of the more easier ridge which leads to Sgorr Bhan 947m. This peak blocks the view of Sgorr Dhearg 1024m our first Munro. Then a descent of about 250m to a col before the climb to the second Munro of the day, Sgorr Dhonuill at 1001m returning to the col, before descending into Gleann a Chaolais, through the pine forest back to the car. About 9.5 miles and about 4,300ft of ascent, that was the plan.

Sgorr Bhan summit is just left of centre. School House Ridge is to the left of the peak. and our route was keeping just right of the trees, to gain the ridge to the right.

But unfortunately plans can change, and we had talked the night before about walking at a nice steady pace, we had all experienced health issues in recent months apart from yorksgal. Don't get me wrong, we were all capable of doing this walk, we have done many similar together. But none of us were at full fitness, which is why we started early, so to avoid pressure of a quicker pace due to losing light later in the day.

Looking back down at Ballachulish and the Pap of Glencoe (Sgorr na Ciche) popping up over the hill behind.

We made our way up the pathless heather and grassy hillside away from the village, picking our way through boggy patches and random streams of water, before climbing over a wired fence.

Pickled onions anyone?   Summit making it look.........easy?

We felt a bit relieved to pick up the stony path that would take us onto the ridge. There was no sign of deer in the area as summit pointed out plenty of 'Reindeer Lichen' plant on the ground, which would have been eaten if deer were around, although we did hear a stag later in the Glen.

Looking out to the north and west, we could see heavy rain forming in the distance, the clouds were dropping and the wind was changing from light winds to strong gusts, and getting stronger by the minute.

Glen coe looking moody as the cloud moves in

At just over 600m and now on the more exposed ridge, the heavy rain finally caught up with us, coupled with high winds, clearly that forecast for bad weather later in the day came early. The summits were now out of sight in thick clag. 

At this point, if we continued towards Sgorr Bhan, we would be committed to continuing over the summit of Sgorr Dhearg 3,300ft. Without any bail out routes, apart from turning back, as a group, in those conditions we felt it would be unwise to continue on such a big walk, so we decided to leave the summits for another day, and look for an alternative route.

summit checking for an alternative route down

Forum member summit went to look for another option for a circular route back down to the village, rather than retracing our route up, but none could be found safely. So retrace our steps we did.

Back in the village of Ballachulish 

Five hours after starting the walk, we were driving back to the hostel to get a hot shower (this time) and changed.

To be honest, although I felt a little disappointed not to have reached a summit, there was a little bit of pleasure in the fact we had been out for five hours, had some cracking views to start with, and a good refreshing walk, but still back early enough to enjoy the evening.

Had we completed the walk, we would have returned late, probably struggled to find a free table in the pub and would've been totally drained.

We walked back to the 'The Clachaig Inn' a second night and had no trouble getting a table.

Having had a couple of pints and a belly full of food we all looked a little drowsy, and it was only 5pm!!! We would never last the night.

Summit suggested getting our heads down in the hostel for an hour, what a great idea I thought.

Having risen from a nap refreshed, we joined a busy hostel in drinking a few beers, soon snakehips would have his 'Jura' Scotch whisky out, and I presented a bottle of JD to the guys.

With a poor weather forecast for Sunday, there wouldn't be an early rise, so we just enjoyed a great evening into the small hours along with others in the hostel including a chap and his group who'd just completed his 

Munro's.

Once again back in the bunk room funny one liners continued late into the night although the level of Methane and sulphur in the room wasn't as funny, and an open window was essential!!!

But finally the room fell almost silent only for the rain bouncing off that open window.

Sunday morning, we were required to vacate our room by 10am. It was still raining, and once again the forecast wasn't good.

So an early morning walk before departure was shelved. There was talk of a visit to the nearby 'Ice Factor' to have a go on the climbing wall, and had we stayed another night we would have done this, but with a long drive ahead for Snakehips and myself, we decided to leave Glencoe mid morning once we had packed our gear up rather than leave it until early afternoon, which as it turned out, was a good call.

Having said our goodbyes, I left the hostel at 10.15am, it would take almost 9 hours to return home due to the M6 closed on both sides of the carriageway at junction 36 which I got stuck in for almost 2 hours, not what you need on a 312 mile drive.

We'd had two good meets weather wise in October 2014 and 2015, we were not as lucky this time. But although we didn't get much walking done, it was still a good weekend, and great to see forum members again.

Next year I think for me 4 days is needed, and maybe try September?

Thanks for reading, and I would appreciate any comments on your thoughts about the weekend we had.