BEN IME (3708')
Sunday 8th July 1979
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Log book entry from 70th R & I Expedition Log - Everest Challenge
Sunday 8th July 1979 Ben Ime (3708’)
Leaders: Glip, John Hennessy, David Bolster and Chris Foster
APL: David Eadiee
Scout: Graham Bolster
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Weather:
Rain, rain, wind, rain etc etc + midges. Yuck
Report
Saturday 7th July The Journey
During the previous Ben Vorlich climb, a silly person called Glip mentioned to Chris how nice the weather had been for all the climbs this year. Inevitably, it poured this weekend. Chris has always remembered that statement and never allows us to forget it. The CAD!
Since it was still the Greenock holiday, leaders outnumbered boys and we had a surplus of transport. Two cars were taken, one of which was Percy of course. Rivet and Deedie had the honour of being Percy’s passengers this time. We left on Saturday after tea and arrived at the Crianlarich youth hostel. As soon as we left the car, we were surrounded by vicious, evil, black-hearted, sadistic, callous midges and so we quickly escaped into the refuge of the hostel.
At night, Deedie produced a game which was quite good, but, unfortunately, DD won, which was totally unfair and shouldn’t have been allowed.
That night we were treated to the squeakiest bunks that we have ever come across in a youth hostel. They were horrific.
Sunday 8th July Ben Lui
Sunday dawned with low cloud and threatening weather. After breakfast, we drove to Tyndrum then hoofed it along a long track to the bottom of Ben Lui. Afterwards, it was claimed that the walk was 4 to 6 miles, but of course it was only three and half.
Two shocks confronted us when we reached the foot of the mountain. The first was that Rivet had left the map back at the car. The second was that the height of Ben Lui was the 3,708 feet and not the 3000 - 3100 feet which we had assumed. Fortunately, as regards the first shock, John had a map which is how we got the second shock.
Since it was only drizzling, we decided to press on and climbed up the south edge of the large coire which turned out to be well sheltered from the wind. As we climbed, it got wetter and wetter until it was a solid downpour. Everybody, bar John, soon became quite wet (John had a NEW anorak!) and we didn’t hang around as a result. At 12:30, we reached the summit having taken only three hours 10 minutes from Tyndrum to cover 5 miles and about 3000 feet. It was extremely cold at the top so we had a quick bite then started down. We followed the South East Ridge, buffeted by a very strong icy cold southwest wind, which soon had us all soaked to the skin except John who had a NEW anorak.
At good reference 268258, we turned off the ridge and down a steep slope and encountered the wreckage of a twin prop-engined plane on its back. There was a great deal of speculation as to how old it was and we still don’t know anything about it.
With the rain lashing down, we fled downhill to the stream from where we had started. It had risen several inches already! David, John and Glip waded across and Chris went upstream to try to get across dry. Unfortunately, he slipped when preparing to John and landed in the middle! The scouts, of course, got across without putting a foot in the water. The complete descent had taken one hour and it was only 1:30 PM, so we had lunch in the shelter of a ruined house. At 2 PM, we set off for the long wet trudge back to the cars, which reached at 2:45 PM to find a) the map and b) Johns car door which was open.
Since everybody was soaking except John (who had a NEW anorak) we took over Tyndrum station for a changing operation. Fortunately, it was deserted and the only slight panic amongst the troops was when an engine drove past with the driver giving us a cheery wave.
Released home at 5 to 6 PM. The climb was the wettest of the year and both Robert and Deedie did extremely well under arduous and rather depressing conditions.