SGURR A' MHAIM 1979

Sunday 3rd June 1979  Ascent of Sgurr a’ Mhaim (3601 feet)

After a stormy night, Sunday turned out to be a carbon copy of Saturday. Most of the Scouts decided to spend the day in camp which was quite understandable. Three hardy scouts, however, decided to join the scouters in tackling Sgurr a’ Mhaim (3601 feet).  They were Kenneth Kerr, Douglas McEwan and Colin Roach,

We started from the car park at 10 AM and set a good pace up Glen Nevis to what was almost like a lost valley. Instead of walking all the way up to the bridge, we decided to ford the river for a bit of excitement. This proved tricky since the water was extremely cold and the rocks slippy. Once over, Kenneth Kerr declared that he had left a rock behind on the opposite bank. Strangely enough, nobody volunteered to retrieve it, and so it was left.

We climbed steadily to grid reference 173682 we rested. John then led off and climbed steadily, without stopping, the steepest part of the climb up to 2500 - 2750 feet, whereupon we had reached the ridge and felt we deserved a rest. It looked a dawdle to the top, but it turned out to be quite stiff in fact. The stones underfoot were very white and crumbly which made walking quite difficult. The party tended to stretch at this point.

Everybody reached the top at 11:55 AM just beating high noon. It took 2- 2.5 hours to reach the top, which, again, was remarkably good – especially so since we had had a stiff climb the previous day. The party had kept together well and had kept up to a sensible, nonstop pace which made the climb one of the better climbed mountains of the year - ranking well with the previous days.

It was quite sheltered at the top behind the cairn, and quite warm. We had a very long lunch. John lit that obnoxious pipe. Glip retreated downhill to sunbathe and was bombarded by snowballs from Kenny Kerr and Douglas McEwan. This developed into a full-scale war with innocent bystanders suffering.

We descended at first down the North East Bluff cutting west into a huge coire which was filled with snow. This allowed us to make an extremely rapid descent to 2500 feet where the coire stopped and the steep slope to the bottom began. The view of Ben Nevis was impressive and the waterfall which we had followed on Saturday looked vertical.

The rest of the descent was spent as the day before with violent bursts of energy and long rests. At the river, we decided to visit the bridge, a wire monkey bridge of dubious stability. Everybody crossed it successfully although Douglas and Shrew took it very carefully indeed. We sped downstream again and Kenny collected his rock en route. The car park was reached at 3 o’clock. We celebrated, visited the shop, struck camp very quickly indeed, and drove home, feeling very tired but very happy.

Chris, Peter and Percy ended up in a cafe in Glencoe en route. The trip down Loch Lomond side was very quick because so few people had dared to venture forth in cars in case they ran out of petrol. As a result, we all were home by 8:00 to 8:30 PM.

During the weekend, the following stages were reached and Kenny Kerr made history by jumping two stages in one weekend.

Everest: Glip, Ralj, Deedie

Kilimanjaro: Andy Davies, Douglas MacEwan, Shrew, Kenny Kerr, John Hennessey

Eiger: Kenny Kerr, Chris Foster, Peter Bennett

Nevis: Kenny MacCrae, Stuart Patrick

Leaders: Glip, Chris Foster, John Hennessey, Peter Bennett, Slip.

Scouts: APL Kenny Kerr, APL David Eadie, APL Douglas MacEwan, Kevin Byng, Andrew Wilson (Ralj). Colin Roach (Shrew), Graham Bolster (Rivet), Robert Wright, Andrew Davies, Kenny MacRae

Equipment: The leaders used John’s mountain tent and Glip’s marechel tent. Deedie and Ralj shared the troop’s Explorer Tent. Kenny and Douglas used Kenny’s Good Companion. Colin, Riveet and Robert shared one of the troop’s tornado tents while Kevin, Andy and Kenny Macrae shared the other.

Cooking was carried out on primuses and trangia.

Each group organized their own food

Cars: Cars were supplied by John, Chris, Peter and Percy. Petrol was a worry due to the shortage but proved no problem in the end.

Weather: Sun, heat, sun, heat, sun heat. It was windy (SW) at high altitudes and was also very windy in camp during Saturday night