BEN CHALLUM

January or February 1996      Ben Challum

Leader

Glip

Scouts   

Andrew Allan, James Orr, David Watson, Alan Penman, Alistair Brewer

Weather

Sunny and dry with good snow cover on hills

​

Transport

Cars (Glip and the Penmans)

​

Report

It was a squeeze getting everyone into the car, but we left gear at the youth hostel to help.

We parked on the farm road and, armed with sledges, set off following a track, then crossing the river to head uphill. We got quite split up, but it was a fine day, o it did not matter too much.

Andrew Allan slipped and banged his head on the last part of the ascent and took a while to recover, so we had lunch.

The summit was plastered with snow and looked quite spectacular. We left rucsacs at the first summit to wander over to the second summit - some interesting little dips and gullies here for sledging another time.

The descent was on soft snow this time and was great for sledging on the steep part. This part gave us about 500 feet of continuous sledging.

Lower down, it wasn't steep enough, but it would be good with hard snow. Ben Challum isn't so boring after all.

We returned to the Youth Hostel where Alan Penman's parents were waiting (Alan had appeared unannounced on Saturday morning and his parents had agreed to help out with transport on the trip home on Sunday).