BEN MORE (3852')

Log book entry from Glip's personal log

Saturday 5th May  Ben More (3852')

Leader Glip

APLs Kenny Blair (Frodo), James Gatherer (Peasant)

Scouts Mark Sinclair, Adrian Simpson, Colin Beaton, Lindsay Church, Douglas McCrorie (Jobby), Alistair Blair (Frodlet) Stuart Dalrymple (Merry)

Weather

Sunny and dry, becoming cloudy in the afternoon. Claims dropping to summit level by late afternoon, but remaining dry. Average temperatures and light winds.

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Report

We didn’t actually decide on Ben More until we reach Loch Lomond as it turned out. We parked on the old road near Portnellan and spend quite a while getting ready, mainly because Merry insisted on playing with his boomerang.

Merry was elected navigator this time and he took us to the west shoulder of the small coire -  a route I haven’t tried before and which led to interesting rocky scrambles near the summit. The party split up more than I would have liked with Frodo, Ally and Peasant forging ahead. Merry was a bit behind because he kept following my rock scrambles. Colin did well. Adrian, Mark, Douglas and Lindsay all kept a reasonable steady pace throughout and, apart from Merry’s fooling about on rocks, nobody was holding us up.

At the top, we distributed scarfs to Eiger and Kilimanjaro winners. Peasant and Mark were the second and third to reach that illustrious mark after Ally last week. It was a rowdy singing assembly which greeted a group of other climbers. I hid.

On the way down, we sped off only to realize that Ally wasn’t with us since he was attending to nature. We played about on some rocks waiting for Ally to appear. I saw him descending and assumed mistakenly that he had seen us. Next moment, however, Ally was gone and was nowhere to be seen. Frodo, Peasant and Adrian returned to the summit in case he’d gone back while the rest stayed at the top of the steep slope down. It was Merry who spotted Ally….. and we were all reunited. We then sped down the mountain boot skiing. Once that was over, the boomerang came out and that provided great sport.

Near the bottom, we met a couple of climbers who thought we had been on skis because of the rate we had come down the snow slopes.

Back at the van, horror of horrors. I had left the lights on yet again! We set about pushing it only to find that the exhaust has fallen off. Mary, Frodo and Colin did amazing things underneath but their attempted repair was unsuccessful so Merry just cut the back straps supporting the exhaust and we shoved it on the roof rack. Fortunately, our bump start succeeded this time and we were soon roaring down the road. And I do mean good roaring!

At Ardgarten, we discovered a football team already camping there, which was unfortunate since Merry took an instant dislike to them. We pitched camp and ate dinner. As before, the food was bought for everybody but split up between groups for cooking. After dinner, people drifted out of Camp to the shop without clearing up, which resulted in me having a fit. I phoned Kenny because he was thinking of coming up for Sunday. In fact, he couldn’t.

Back at camp, we played the football crowd at non-stop cricket which was rather unfair as far as their bowling was concerned. Not surprisingly, our lot got quite disgruntled. To cap it all, we got a visit from one chao who was checking that nobody annoyed his caravanners followed by the warden who was forbidding campfires on-site. All in all, Argarten campsite has become a bit unsatisfactory. By the looks of the youth hostel, with amusement machines etc, it doesn’t look too attractive either. It looks as if it’s time to find a suitable wild site in this area – possibly up Kinglas Water from Butterbridge, or maybe somewhere in Glen Douglas.

After nightfall, we had our campfire on the beach but it wasn’t as magnificent as the previous weekends.

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