I was in the hostel lounge this evening waiting for a guest – she’d run outside to tell her husband how awesome it is here and that she wants to stay the night – whilst waiting I picked up a copy of Trail magazine that was laying on one of the coffee tables, I lazily flicked through the pages and saw this…..
From now on all our advertising is going to say “As featured in Trail magazine”…I may of course forget to mention that the magazine was from 2003! The full article can be found here (unless the nice people at Trail magazine tell us to remove it).
Matt
Invergarry Lodge
(As featured in Trail magazine)
Me and new official Team Invergarry running partner Ian headed up to the eastern Mamores to bag Sgurr Elide Mor, Binnein Beag and Binnein Mor.
In brief the route is about 20km and has two steep bouldery ascents up Sgurr Elide Mor and Binnein Beag with a very steep scree descent from Sgurr Elide Mor inbetween, then a suprisingly good, slightly scrambley route directly up Binnein Mor and a great run steadily back down to Kinlochleven. Oh, and some nice views…..
Na Gruagaichean
Sgurr Elide Mor
Ian approaching the summit on Binnein Mor
The view back to Loch Leven
Great day out, rain held off and three new Munro ticks for me. Lovely stuff, cheers Ian.
–Matt
Making the most of the fantastic weather we’ve been having up here I escaped the hostel chores for a quick run up Ben Nevis via the CMD Arete. A fantastic day for it, the normal Ben Nevis crowds where elsewhere after the busy bank holiday weekend – I saw 6 people on the arete and no more then a couple of dozen on the summit.
From the car park, up to the halfway lochan, split off the path and head round to the North Face, I ended up not far from the CIC hut where I headed straight up the very steep slopes to Carn Mor Dearg, scramble round the arete, up to the Ben summit and down the tourist track to the car park, 3 hours 20 minutes. This is a fantastic route around the UK’s highest mountain which enables you to see it’s best side and get away from the masses, highly recommended.
–Matt
Please note, if you are unsure about your skills on the mountains, let us know and we will put you in contact with a guide.
A Mountain Marathon is a two day event in which teams of two navigate round various checkpoints over mountainous terrain. You don’t find out exactly where it is or where you have to go until you start, unless they print the village name on the free T-shirt that they give you the day before!
The Highlander this year was based around Dundonnell, the first day basically involved a 26km run round An Teallach, around some lochs and over some smaller hills. Since it was my first MM we entered C class, one of the easier categories. My team mate (my brother Mark) would like me to point out that he normally competes in a higher class and has signed himself up for the elite class for the upcoming Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon whereas I’ll still be competing in C class. Anyway, after a tough (1 uphill section too many for me!) but enjoyable first day we arrived at the overnight camp to a virtually empty field to find ourselves in 4th place.
I should at this point add that the Highlander isn’t like normal MMs. Although you still have to carry your tent, food and stove etc…this one has a marquee at the overnight camp serving food, drinks…BEER…it even has a ceilidh in the evening for those not too tired to dance.
We’d earned ourselves a place in the chasing start for the second day which meant we could have a leisurely morning and didn’t set off until 8am (although we still got woken up at 6 by U2 being played over the PA system – surely no-one would choose to wake up to U2!). Unfortunately, because the organisers wanted everyone to finish the course by 2pm the chasing start was reversed so the people we were chasing for 3rd place actually started after us…confused? me too.
Day two went without a hitch for us – I had a dodgy ankle but a handful of painkillers sorted that out and kept the worst of the pain at bay, oh, and Mark got a bit excited when he overtook the ginger girl from Trail magazine and she said he was very fast. Our spirits were lifted slightly when we saw a mountain legend (I won’t mention your name Steve) from a higher class looking for his checkpoint in the wrong place…shows even the best can get it slightly wrong. Anyway, a slightly shorter day for the second day and we managed to finish 3rd on the day but still finished 4th overall – we missed out on 3rd place by less than two minutes! To finish off the weekend we jetted back to Ullapool across Loch Broom by speed boat..what a great way to finish off the event!
A good weekend but it was nice to be back in the 4 star comfort of Invergarry Lodge after a cold night in a tent with my lightweight Tesco sleeping bag.
–Matt
We’ve been enjoying lovely weather round these parts recently…finally feels like spring has sprung! Anyway, we took the opportunity to cycle a section of the Great Glen Way, this section is normally the second day for walkers, running from Gairlochy, along Loch Lochy to Invergarry (although we have known people to come straight to us – and beyond – from Fort William in one day).
The section running from Gairlochy along Loch Lochy is one of the most popular sections of the 5 – 7 day walk, it has great views across Loch Lochy towards Ben Nevis. We took a few snaps so you could see for yourselves….
-Matt
Calling all paddlers….the Garry release dates have been, er, released!
From Wheres the Water website “The Garry is a good intermediate paddle or playrun (Grade 3+). When releasing, the water usually starts rising 08:00 – 10:00 and starts dropping again in the evening 18:30 – 04:30. Paddling between 10am and 8pm is pretty safe levels-wise.”
The dates are:
April: Sat 2nd, Thurs 7th, Sat 9th, Thur 14th, Fri 22nd and Sat 30th
May: Sat 7th, Sat 14th, Thur 19th, Sat 21st and Thur 26th
June: Thurs 2nd, Sat 4th, Thur 9th, Thurs 16th, Sat 18th, Thurs 23th and Sat 25th
July: Sat 2nd, Thurs 7th, Sat 9th, Thurs 14th, Thurs 21st, Sat 23rd, Thurs 28rd and Sat 30th
August: Thurs 4th, Thurs 11th, Thurs 18th and Thurs 25th
September: Thurs 1st, Thurs 8th, Sun 11th, Sat 17th and Sun 25th
October: Sat 1st, Thurs 6th, Thurs 13th, Thurs 20th and Thurs 27th
Don’t forget the Moriston (harder than the Garry) generally releases on a Tuesday most people paddle it on Tuesday afternoons or evenings but it is also possible Wednesday Mornings.
I don’t know about you but all this sounds like a great excuse for a midweek get-away!
I’d been told that there wasn’t much snow left on the South Shiel ridge so Rick and I devised a vague plan of heading up the Forcan Ridge to the Saddle and then heading east along the South Shiel ridge until we got tired, we’d then head off down one the smaller ridges back to civilisation.
We only made it about halfway along the Forcan Ridge – we were in our running gear, no axes or crampons – when we decided we’d better back track before we got into difficulty. We knew we could down climb everything we’d covered so far but we had arrived at a steep icy section that didn’t look fun to reverse and we knew from previous experience that there is a hairy traverse later on where crampons would be very useful. We decided today wasn’t our day to appear on Channel 5’s Highland Emergency, besides, Rick had to be back for 5pm so there wasn’t time to hang around for a helicopter rescue.
We back-tracked to the bealach and then headed up to Sgurr na Sgine, the next Munro to the east, and then continued to the next hill, Sgurr a’ Bhac Chaolais, at least we would have done if Rick hadn’t talked me into traversing round it on a ledge he’d spotted from the previous summit. We traversed halfway round but ended up with no option but to ascend to the summit anyway, still we got to see a side of the mountain most people don’t …the steep north side!
We continued up to the next Munro, Creag nan Damh, where we fueled up on homemade coconut ice (thanks to Rick’s good lady wife) before backtracking west for 2 km and heading down the good path from Bealach Duibh Leac for a steady (if a little icy) 4km back to the car.
Nice to be out on the hills again after what feels like a very long time, especially on a great blue sky day like today. I could get used to having a grandma around to help look after things – thanks Mum!
–Matt
As a reward for getting the hostel done I sloped off to Polldubh crags down in Glen Nevis for a spot of climbing with Rick who’s caught the climbing bug again. I was never much of a climber (quiet at the back Phil!) and haven’t been out for the best part of two years….sweaty palms, shaking legs, the blind scrabble for hand holds, tangled ropes, uncomfortable rock boots, fumbling with gear trying to get it the rock so you don’t hurtle down to your doom…. just how I remember it, great fun!
Rick heading towards the top of Pine Wall
We managed half a dozen easy routes (Pine Wall, Right Wall, Tear etc.) before the sun came down, most of the routes we’d done before but it was great to be out in the sunshine instead of covered in dust and paint sorting things in the hostel. Hopefully we’ll find time to get out again soon.
-Matt
We are finally open after the burst pipes we got for Christmas, it’s been a lot of hard work (isn’t January supposed to be a quiet month?) but while the builders were in fixing ceilings and floors we took the opportunity to get lots of other jobs done….we think it was worth the effort and hope you do too when you see it.
A couple of snaps for you (click for bigger)….
Anyway, it’ll soon be busy season….see you soon!
Just a quick post to let you know we have suffered some water damage from burst pipes over the Christmas period but we hope to be up and running by mid Februart. If you haven’t heard from us about an existing booking you should assume that your booking is ok and we’ll be up and running before you are due to arrive. We are still here ready to take your booking for later in the year…unless we are downstairs decorating!
Happy New Year,
Matt and Jenny
