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WalkHighlands Meet. 22nd/23rd Nov 2012.A brilliant night in Gorton Bothy.Weather. Thursday, Cloudy, rain. /Friday, Showers.
Gorton Bothy is east of Loch Tulla, conveniently situated en route to Glencoe, so ideal as a juicy starter for the coming WH meet at the weekend
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Now I’m one who never misses on a Bothy trip with some good company, so feelers were put out on the Forum for any takers, seven other hardy souls took up the challenge…
Martin Garnet, Keith Harper, Carol Harper, Nathan (Nathan79) Stuart (Gable Gable End) Alan Ross (ScotJamie) Markthespark and last but not least Monty.
It didn’t start well, my mate Martin phoned me saying he would be late, due to not being able to pack anything until that morning for the whole weekend!
He finally turned up at 11.35am (2 hours late) for the long journey north. With some further delays on the M74 we finally arrived by Achallader Farm at around 4.50pm in darkness.
We parked in the small car park off the main road and took the track north of the river rather than taking the south track that crosses a tributary river that would be in spate after all the recent rain (we later found that Stuart and Mark had braved the crossing which was thigh deep and ultimately arse deep when Mark slipped! Even with my prior warning of this problem river on the Forum
)
I left Martin who was still packing in the darkness, telling him to just follow the track keeping the river to his right…fine until the track disappeared, as it had been swept away at one stage leaving the fence dangling in the river
, but with a few fence crossings I was back on the puddle laden track. I enjoyed walking by torchlight in the darkness, at least the track is firm and straight forward so no problem. After about 1.45hrs I turned a corner to see the welcome light of a candle in the Bothy window
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I opened the door to exclaim “Who’s bleeding bright idea was this!
”
Nice welcoming sight on a foul winters night.
It was good to see old friends again, and a new found friend Mark, oh and a nice blazing fire already warming the Bothy up nicely
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Martin turned up about 30mins later soaked and happy to see a fire and beer already flowing.
I’ve spent countless nights in Bothys, and can honestly say that this was by far the best night ever….chat, laughter, music by Monty (well done for bringing in the guitar in the foul weather) and renditions by Stuart, Alan and Nathan, Poetry by Mark, Jokes by Monty (well it canna all be good
) a quiz to while away an hour or so done by Alan R, and eh……a “few” drams! All by a great fire with several loads of coal brought in by all the guys. Superb!
Stuart with some classy stuff
They don’t look too happy as Monty prepares to sing!
What the hell, he went for it.
Alan R takes the stage
Nathan flagging….
….and hits the wall.We rolled into bed around 2am, most were unaware of Martins legionary snoring until 5 minutes after his head hit the pillow. In the middle of the night poor Martin woke starkly as if in a nightmare, to see Mark hovering over him whilst cursing and threatening him to a quick death!
Friday. The morning after, and the walk out.Bothy mornings can be somewhat groggy at times, this morning was to be no exception! A few heads were banging, but we slowly stirred into some sort of action, stoves lit, breakfast downed, and then the bustle of packing the rucksacks, it's all part of the Bothy experience
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Groggy mornings!
Oh dear!Outside fresh snow overnight had covered the hillside and there was even some of that yellow stuff outside (no not that yellow snow).
Some early yellow stuff
But as we emerged from the Bothy another shower greeted us, at least our rucksacks were somewhat lighter for out walk out and it was mostly a gradual downhill easy walk, a few more long showers hit us full face, but it was a nice way to clear the cobwebs!
Leaving Gorton Bothy. No wonder Monty's happy...there a Giraffe in waterproofs humping him! 
Walk out from the Bothy.
Back by the road.
Blue skies at the car park…but bugger it we were off to the Clachaig!What a start to the weekend that was to come, which was full of fun and laughter….apart from one slight hiccup….when I decided to have a fight with a (by now) HUGE BOULDER on Curved Ridge….unfortunately the boulder won!
Walking wounded!Thanks to all that came, those who didn’t don’t know what they missed (Apart from this Trip Report and Video of course)
Short video of trip on You-tube here…..
