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I HAD THIS POSTED ON THE NOW UNAVAILABLE SCOTTISHHILLS SITE, AND AM POSTING HERE AS A REMINDER OF HOW MUCH THOSE OF US WHO POSTED MUCH OF THEIR STUFF THERE WILL MISS IT. THIS IS ONE OF OVER 300 TRIP REPORTS LOST TO THE INTERNET. I COULDN'T PICK JUST "BEN ADEN" THE VIA LOCH QUOICH IS A MISNOMER
Corbett Bagging for Softies Part 5….Ben Aden
What? Ben Aden
When? June 3rd-5th 2010
How? From Loch Arkaig to Sourlies Bothy and then the standard SMC Corbett book route up Ben Aden the next day.
Weather? Warm
Distance? Cycle and walk in 8k+8k , climb Ben Aden 14k Height 887 metres
Time taken? Walk and Cycle in 6 hours, climb Ben Aden 10 hours. Walk and cycle out 7 hours.
Who? Squiz and Realsquiz. ( i.e. Sgurr and R)
A glance at the Ben Aden trip reports show that members of Scottish Hills are all possessed of incredible stamina, considerable masochism and/or a kayak. We do not have any of these resources, so the map was unfolded, the runes and everyone within e-mailing distance consulted and another Corbett Bagging for Softies trip was hatched.
There appeared to be a weather window on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by showery weather and “wind speeds of up to 25 mph on summit ridges with occasional gusts of 40 mph which will impede walking” on Friday. Realsquiz opted for Wednesday and Thursday with a walk-out on Friday. Unfortunately I schedule everything that now passes for a normal social life, plus all my various appointments on the first Wednesday of every month. “Cancel!” said Realsquiz. We set out on Thursday with a distinct air of silent recrimination in the car.
We cheered up when a red kite swooped down in an attempt to grab some road-kill just feet away from our windscreen near Comrie. We had a largish lunch in Spean Bridge and drove down the switchback road alongside Loch Arkaig to its end at Strathan. The guys that Doogz and Cuillin have photographed are still lounging around here, with all their antlers in velvet.
The bikes seemed very loaded
We abandoned them in the forest at and started walking at 3 p.m.
Anne3366 had said that it was possible to get all her gear into her 35l ruck-sack, and since R had done in his back taking a larger size into the Fisherfield, and not recovered for 6 months, we had both taken that approach. He had the tent and the stove, and I had all the food, foolishly stowed in a smaller rucksack on my front. Why do genetic engineers mess around looking to introduce blight resistance into potatoes, when they could be splicing camel genes into humans and allow us to go without food for days at a time?
We still hadn’t reached the big cairn on the pass by 5.30p.m., but sat down to eat a Tracker bar each anyway
We passed these lakes as it got gloomier. Some profanities seemed to shatter the peace. It could have been the midges swearing at me, but more likely was the other way round.
Beyond the lakes, the path crosses the burn at a small cairn. We did too, but we didn’t follow it up the hill-side, thinking this was the path going up the Allt Coire na Ciche. We were getting too tired to make sensible decisions, and thought we could see a small path going down along the burn. So we followed it, which lead to a lot of scrambling with heavy packs that we could have done without.
At last the sea came into view.
.We staggered into the bothy around 9 p.m. where were three guys, two of whom worked at Chester Zoo. They very kindly noted me staring at our tranja as if it were an advanced mensa metal puzzle, and offered a boost of their stove to boil some water. We had instant soup and sandwiches, being too lazy to do anything else, and despite their offering to vacate the bothy for us, decided it was first come, first served, and braved the midges to put the tent up. NB The picture was taken next day, as it was far too dark for photography by now.
Sharing a tent with Realsquiz is rather like sharing one with a dinosaur. His knees not longer fold beyond a right angle, so turning round in it occupies almost all the space. For the same reason he finds getting into a sleeping bag is difficult.
I didn’t wake up, but he tells me that his sleep was disturbed by wind and showers.
The next day, we set off just after eight. The Chester lads had already departed to haul their packs over the three Munros and back to their car.
It is not often that we set off so obviously at sea level
A sea-scoured rock
Some crabs.
IMG_5952 by
Margaret Squires, on Flickr
We walked to the shuggly bridge at Carnoch. The notice says
Bridge is in
DANGEROUS CONDITION
Use at Own Risk
Found some bluebells lining the track as we walked towards Ben Aden and Sgurr na Ciche
We crossed the River Carnach above its junction with the Allt Achadh a Glinne
and set off up the south west face of Ben Aden. We may have gone too far up, because on our return we found contouring round far easier.
Looking across towards Beinn Bhuidhe which we climbed last summer.
We contoured round to the north ridge, where we found some globe flowers
All the time we kept expecting the wind to get up, but eventually decided it must have passed during the night. (Maybe it was all my silent entreaties to the bad weather magnets on the site to |STAY AWAY FROM SCOTLAND…OR AT LEAST FROM Knoydart)
Up the north ridge,
Once on the ridge, we could see the “sporting” north east ridge that Cuillin and RCFC had climbed on their kayacking trip. It looked very sporting
Finally we reached the summit cairn
And in case it wasn’t the summit, bagged another rock as well (we weren’t planning a return visit)
Noted that the lochan nearest the summit was half drained of water. Who can have been drinking it? The finger points at a certain Scottishhills couple who camped on the summit only a week previously.
We retreated almost the same way we had come,
but traversed round to the south west side lower down. These were the steep slopes above which we had originally come.
We seemed to be running out of steam. It took us a long time to get back to Sourlies, where the evening menu was
Instant soup
Smash and ham with instant soup sauce
Muesli with dried prunes and apricots
Instant coffee and coffeemate
OK, all you camping gourmets. It is disgusting, but it is also calorific and contains some liquid.
There was a Nordic couple in another tent, and a solo guy who arrived late and went early.
On Saturday, we walked out.
Realsquiz seemed to be carrying as much as ever, but we had eaten most of the food. He wouldn’t give me his little rucksack.
From the high well travelled path, we could look down and see the indistinct path that had lead us down alongside the river
Here is the cairn at the river crossing. Near it is the higher path which we should have taken on our trip out.
Even in broad sunlight, the midges were creeping into our shadows and having a go, but the lochans looked much more benign in full daylight.
The Nordic couple didn’t actually overtake us until we sat down for lunch…soggy three day old sandwiches and more cereal bars. Their packs were gi-normous
“Imagine,” said R, when they had passed, “They must do all this carrying for fun, because they’ve done nothing but walk from bothy to bothy!”
We got slower and slower
It was wonderful to see the bikes again and get all that weight off our backs. It took us some time to organise them. After abortive attempts to swing his leg over his bike and all its luggage, R realised that he hadn’t simply been crippled by the experience of the last three days, but I had been carrying both mats on the journey out. My rucksack kept falling off my carrier, and eventually I realised that it needed to be across, rather than along, but not before R had ditched all his stuff and come cycling back in a panic expecting to find me in the ditch unconscious.
Eventually we arrived back at the car, with just about enough energy to drive to north where we had organised a caravan for a week.
We made the mistakes, so you don’t have to. Read and Learn
1. Don’t leave it until the average age of the party is 70. It’s almost too old.
2. Don’t leave it until 3 p.m. to set out to Sourlies (unless of course you are 97% fitter than us.)
3. Go up the hill when the path does, you won’t regret it.
4. Start traversing on Ben Aden lower down than we did.
5. (One from Realsquiz) Don’t carry on playing football until you are fifty, you will no longer be fast enough to avoid getting tackled and your knees will pay for it later.
