-Matt

The Highlander is the first mountain marathon of the year so the weather can be variable. This year it was kind to us, good visibility but with a dusting of snow on both days to make it interesting. Fortunately, unlike other MMs the organisers set up a marquee overnight so you can be warm and dry if the weather is really bad. Did I mention they also sell beer and have a ceilidh? Surely the best MM in the calendar!

A Kodak moment halfway between Checkpoints 2 and 3

Day one went fairly well for us, we only made one small mistake that lost us about 10 minutes but some good navigation/route choices served us well overall.

Other teams (Ian far left) heading steeply up to check 5

We were delighted and very very surprised to find ourselves in 3rd place at the over night camp. We were way off second place (about 14 minutes) but had a buffer of about 3 minutes between us and the Swedish team in 4th.

Day 2 was very enjoyable for me, the route planners had been kind and my legs felt good all day, our navigation and route choice was spot on all day. We ended up being the fastest on the course for the second day, and finished third overall in B class, about 4 minutes off second place and a good 8 minutes or so between us and 4th. Our first podium finish!

Heading up to the 1st checkpoint on day 2

Big thanks to Ian for his excellent navigation (again) – he considers the finer point of navigation whilst I nag him to keep moving in what I believe to be the general direction…seems to work well for us as a team despite a tensions getting high as we get tired!

A great weekend and a great event. We heard whispers about the location next year which will be awesome if it turns out to be true. On a sadder note, I’ve also  heard that it may be the last Highlander if numbers don’t pick up…so tell your friends and we’ll see you there in 2013!

-Matt

I escaped up the local Loch Lochy Munros yesterday on one of the fantastic blue sky days we’ve been having recently…hopefully lots more to come in the near future!

Looking across to Meall Na Teanga

The ridge to Sean Meall from Sron a Choire Ghairbh

Hard work in the hot weather but great to be out again, legs felt good and compared to the few others I saw out on the hills I was making good speed..maybe this next  mountain marathon won’t be too bad after all. Fingers crossed.

Matt

EDIT: Here’s another video taken the night after

We’ve been making lots of cakes recently and most of them get put up on our facebook page but I thought I’d thought I post a few pictures up here in case you missed them.

A gingerbread Invergarry Lodge from christmas

Loch Ness monster cupcakes

A Loch Ness monster birthday cake (although Alby thought it was a turtle??)

Matt

A cold but happy Dylan

Not much to report on the route, the standard route I’ve done before from Corriechoille near Spean Bridge, follow the track for 5 or 6 km then head up to Stob Ban, down the steep and surprising long descent to the bealach then up, up some more, keep going up, then finally after a little more up to the summit of Stob Coire Claurigh (the 14th highest mountain in Britain).

Heading northwards, initially across a narrow ridge, then some blocky ground you’ll soon reach a long grassy descent which is a joy to run down and takes you back to the car. About 11 miles in all, lovely.

Cold summit of Stob Coire Claurigh

Some of the snow was bullet hard..it gave me a chance to test out my new crampons.

Hopefully there will be a few more days out in the upcoming months before the hostel gets busy again, although I think our new baby might have something to say about that.

–Matt

P.S. I am aware the blog goes a little quiet from time to time, be sure to join us at out Facebook page to keep more up to date.

Unfortunately the blue skies did not last all day and by the time we got to the top (we didn’t set off until 11.30) the weather was beginning to come in and it was snowing heavily by the time we got back to the cars.

It must have been fairly hard going for Dylan to be sat down!

One of the locals

Great to see the hills covered in snow again and good to be out in it despite the occasional thigh deep snow drift and some very cold feet.

Matt

Not much to say about the route, just the standard route anti-clockwise as listed here (http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/fortwilliam/spideanmialach.shtml) following good stalkers tracks up and down.

The view across loch Quoich to Gairich (left) and Sgurr na Ciche (pointy one at the back)

- surely one of the best views in Scotland?

Along the ridge from Gleouraich

Final ascent to Spidean Mialach

Things were beginning to look a bit more promising as we neared the first summit (and talk of ultra distance races died away….. gulp!). The Ben was threatening to clear but never quite managed it before we descended into cloud for the arete proper.

The arete was fairly slippy in the damp conditions but good fun as always and we only had one small canine logistic incident when Ian’s dog got a little stuck. As we came round off the arete and headed up the final slog up to the summit of Ben Nevis we broke through the cloud, dry rock and views pushed us on to a deserted summit.

Isla celebrating being the highest dog the UK

Ian’s silhouette as we start the descent.

And the view to the south as we headed down.

We had an interesting descent. Neither of us had brought head torches but we just about got away with it. We made it down and back round to the north face before things got dark, the path back down to the Leanachan forest was just runnable in the gloom (dark path, light rocks) but we had to walk most of the way through the forest as we couldn’t see – a lesson learnt.

4 hours for the round trip, pretty good going considering the slippy arete, dark descent and the 20 minutes snapping pictures on the summit.

–Matt

Two days running in the mountains with all your supplies on your back didn’t feel like a great prospect at the start line but things turned out fairly well for us on the first day. Memorable moments included seeing a poor guy go nipple deep in a freezing river whilst his partner was already 100 meters up the hill and none the wiser, Ian having to run back down a hill to pick up his map, the longest, coldest, hardest 7 km of my life between checkpoints 4 and 5, helping two lost and confused Swedish guys and some guy asking us (as we stood freezing cold, soaking wet in foggy horizontal rain struggling to use our hands) if we where happy with where we were – we knew perfectly well where we were we just weren’t particularly happy about it!

A wet and cold overnight camp was made worse by Ian having a wet sleeping mat and a very wet sleeping bag but our spirits were lifted when we found we were placed 10th overnight which was better than either of us could have hoped for.

Day two went very well for us, Ian’s navigation was spot on (as it was all weekend) and we kept up good running for most of the day, the sun even came out as we descended from the mountains for the last few checkpoints.

Sorry for lack of photos, not much to take photos of for most of the weekend and by the time the sun did come out my camera had given up ( I think it drown)…Ian also reminded me it was a race! This photo from the finish “borrowed” form the official OMM photographers – hence the watermark.

We ended up 7th fastest on the second day which moved us in to 8th place overall. A fantastic result for us which we are both very happy with. I’m also happy not to have anything in the foreseeable future to train for.

–Matt