BEN LOMOND 1979

Sunday 13th May    Ben Lomond (3192 feet)

We met at Scout headquarters at 9:30 AM and left by 10.00 AM, motoring via Balloch, Drymen, and Balmaha. This time Kenny Kerr, Douglas McEwan, and John Kerr had the pleasure of a journey in Percy. It was an exciting journey since Percy insisted on skidding round corners today. Eventually, everybody arrived at Rowardennan where several of the Scouts had started on their advanced Scout standard hike the year before (Kenny Kerr and Douglas McEwen).

At 11:35 AM, we started off in glorious sunshine and were soon ‘ventilating’. At 15 feet, Rivet was congratulated on reaching Kilimanjaro. At 500 to 600 feet, Douglas McEwen and Colin Roach celebrated their own stages (Eiger and Kilimanjaro respectively). At 1500 feet, John Kerr passed Kilimanjaro.

The pace was very slow and so there was plenty of time for training, much to the Scouts’ delight? Ralj passed Adventure Precautions and Compass while Rivet passed Adventure Precautions. During all this, David Eadie and John Kerr were navigating the hill.

Once we reached the mid level shoulder, we were enveloped in mist and the shoulder seemed to stretch for ever.  At last, we reached the final steep stage and we soon climbed that to the summit ridge. Everybody was very decent and allowed Robert to reach the cairn first at 1:35 PM. The top was surprisingly windless and we had a pleasant lunch break, spoilt only by the hoards of people who appeared. A bunch of kids from another group disgraced themselves by chucking rubbish down the hill and we even complained both to them and their leaders about it. Stirring stuff!

Leaving the summit and the shelter (2:05 PM), we battled down through the wind, picking up David Eadie’s sunglasses which he had dropped en route. Incidentally, this was Deadie’s birthday and all kinds of dire threats were made about him visiting the loch at close quarters. We didn’t hurry down and reached the car park at 3:30 PM in glorious sunshine. After celebrating with coke and raisins, we had another race home, with Percy resounding to ‘Nelly the Elephant’, the ‘Muppets’ etc.

Deedie somehow managed to escape his Loch Lomond swim but wasn’t so lucky at headquarters.  The following Scouts/Leaders passed stages to Everest;

Ben Nevis; Peter Bennett

Eiger: Douglas MacEwan

Kilimanjaro: Kevin Byng, John Kerr, Colin Roach

The group consisted of the following;

Leaders: Glip, John Hennessey, Peter Bennett

Scouts:

PL Willie Grant

APL David Eadie (Deedie); APL Kenny Kerr; APL Douglas MacEwan

Scouts: John Kerr, Graham Bolster (Rivet); Andrew Wilson (Ralj); Robert Wright; Colin Roach (Shrew), Kevin Byng

Weather: Very mild, sunbathing weather at low altitude. Jersey weather on top. Cloudy with sunny intervals but hill fog above 2000 feet, almost clearing above 3000’. Wind moderate to strong on high ground from south west. Dry all day.