Woodys - February 2000

Look further down for the photos.

In my final year of University, just after my first semester exams, I went off on a Scottish winter trip with Gary, Woody and his brother Wood 1 (real names Scott and Richard Wood). Woody was also in his final year of a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, but we met through BACCA (Bath Uni Rag). Sadly Woody was taken from us in the summer of 2006, he never got to see these photos as I only re-discovered them in 2007 (they were developed just before I graduated and immediately packed, that box was then forgotten in my parents attic).

We have often raved about this trip; from the mountaineering side of things it was the last trip I did as an Undergraduate and on a the first time I wild-bivi'd on a munro in the snow. But the real stories, sadly not in the photos concern everything else in the trip. The dodgy gold car we ran around in (borrowed from a friend of Woody's, we later found out that she'd forgotten she'd lent it to him) with a windscreen that had a 5mm crack at the start of the week that ended up split at the end of the week due to the cold, a rear passenger door you could look through and see the road and a rear boot latch operated by a bit of wire and an iceaxe. Discovering haggis pizza at the Kings House in Glencoe (never since served there to the best of my knowledge), or the way the Woodys camped on a snow slope, just pegging down a cheap dome tent on the slope and hoping friction would stop them sliding to their deaths. Anyway my friends are bored with the stories so I won't bore the rest of the world too, here are the photos and descriptions.

Day 1 and 2 - Stob a Choire Odhair, snow bivi and Stob Ghabhar

We aimed to drive up to the highlands in one day from Bath, sadly the car wasn't the speediest so we arrived at 4am the following morning and had to camp where we parked the car - next to a pub a little way north of Glencoe (I have no idea if the pub is still there, in winter it was very far out of the way). We were up at 8am, due mostly to the cold and fact we'd missed eating at the end of the day before. Luckily we had stopped off for food at an ASDA on the way up and discovered little tins of haggis and scottish breakfast packs (black pudding, clootie(sic) dumplings, square sausage and bacon). We had a leisurely day and climbed Stob a Choire Odhair, before heading down to the col between it and Stob Ghabhar to bivi for the night, Gary and I in snow bivi's (called snow-graves by the others) and the Woody's in a dome tent secured to the snow by normal pegs and friction.

If you have never bivi'd in the snow in the mountains all I can say is do it; we had a cloudless night and needless to say there was little light pollution and no noise, the sky was incredible and crisp clear.

The following day I woke up early, 4am to be exact (anyone who has bivi'd on snow only to roll off their rollmat onto the bare snow knows why) and discovered that my boots, despite being in the bivi-bag with me had frozen. Still a short walk that can only be described as excrutiating later and all was well. The panorama photo below may have been taken that morning at sunrise, or it may have been from the summit of Stob Ghabhar. We hadn't taken much water with us the day before as we thought we'd be able to melt snow for water. None of us had done this before and sadly discovered 1km above sea level that you had to melt a great deal of snow for very little water. After only two shared cups of tea between us plus the high fat ASDA/ haggis breakfast mentioned earlier we packed up the camp and climbed Stob Ghabhar, before continuing along the Aonach Eagach (no, not that Aonach Eagach but one of several other ones dotted about the highlands). By the end of the ridge we were all getting very thirsty, and when Gary stepped on a small patch or partially frozen bog his footprint filled with water, which he proceeded to scoop out with his cup and drink. The rest of us pointed out that this probably wasn't the best thing to do and managed to last until we reached a wide river leading into Glencoe several hours later. That evening we camped at the Kings House and enjoyed haggis pizza, a standard cheese and tomato pizza with breeze-blocks of haggis on it. Mmmmmmm. Gary spent much of the evening on the toilet.

Day 3

After a night at the Kings House (Gary and I in Bivi bags, the guys in their tent) we had to get back to the car. Gary was still a little under the weather so he and I walked back along a bit of the west highland way and a low level route, passing a hill on which, apparently, special forces have a monument to the dead. The Woody's hooked up with a German they met at the camp site and went off to do another munro. The German was offered iceaxes by both Gary and I, and refused them saying (in a thick accent) "no, I am fine with my trek-poles". Gary and I arrived back at the pub by the car at 3 and discovered it open. We then had a drink. And another. And a few more. By 8pm we realised that the guys were a little late and so in our state decided to mount a rescue mission. Luckily for us as we were hiking unprepared up towards our almost certain deaths we found the guys. Apparently the German should really have had an iceaxe on that route. He didn't talk much.

Where are the photos of the above? Well there aren't any, but it helps for continuity. Our kit had ended up soaked after the night on the hill, and the night in the campsite (a combination of not shaking everything out properly and some very wet snow on the night at the Kings House) so we checked in to a bunkhouse at Bridge of Orchy. We were the only people there and as can be seen took over the place to dry our stuff. After some more heavy drinking I tried to make a fondue out of ground up Doritos and cheese. It tasted nice, but had to be kept very hot, and hence the base of the pan ended up welded with the most amazing black stuff. I think I finally got the last of it off on a trip a few years later.

Ed-mare Hill

Ed-mare as in nightmare, read on.

The following day with our kit dry and the bunkhouse a bit pongy we headed off to do Beinn an Dothaid, leaving our stuff in the car and just doing it with lightweight kit. As it happens the bag I used that day ended up in the hands of an official in Nigeria just over a year later, but that is another story. The weather was getting worse and what was wet snow the day before was now rain at ground level. Further up the mountain it was however falling as snow - as can be seen a total whiteout. I took the group up through this with what must be some of the best navigation I have ever done. Once on the summit-plateau (not really a plateau but may as well have been that day) some mico-nav contouring and a bearing took us the last 300m straight at the trig-point. Blinding.

I of course intended to take up back down, but for whatever reason (stress, fatigue, hangover, just being a bit c*ap) I lost it (not us) on the way down. After doing fine for the first bit I suddenly got so disoriented in the whiteness that I was turning from side to side on the spot saying that my compass wouldn't stay still. The guys put me in the middel of the group and with a combination of last man-first man bearing work and Woody's GPS we got down.

Hence Ed-mare hill.

Kinlochleven and our final Bothy

I don't know where we spent the night after that, probably back at the bunkhouse, however the next day we planned to walk up through Kinlochleven and stay in the bothy that I stayed in during my 1998 trip. However the rain had now reached such evels that as we hiked out of Kinlochleven we met larger and larger floods crossing the path, until eventually we decided to give it up. The last of the Kinlochleven photos is of Gary warming his hands in the fireplace.

We decided then to try and make it to another bothy that Gary had found a while back just north of Spean Bridge by Loch Arkaig, and made it there just before dark. Woody had forgotten his waterproof trousers, and so used bin-bags.

By now another clothing problem had shown up. I'd had a Buffalo shirt for about 4 years by the time of this trip (in fact I was using that same shirt until December 2006, it lasted 11 years, I loved that thing probably more than was healthy; I was even quoted by Buffalo once in an advert in Climb Magazine - Feb 2006 page 17), but it wasn't until late 1999 that I owned the full DP system and Superbag. For those not familiar with the DP system go to the Buffalo website, those of you who are will of course know that the system is designed to be worn next to the skin, and the clothes have to be worn to use the Superbag. You can imagine the problem after a week. Still I couln't smell it...... The following day I went for my final hike with the Woody's (Gary was still under the weather), and that evening we packed up and headed to some friends in Edinburgh.