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After a number of highly successful outings in the company of kevsbald and/or curlywurly, it was decided to celebrate the arrival of good old British Summertime with a jolly little outing on Bynack More. I had perused the route description on this site as well as the various reports posted, as well as the large selection of photos posted on the munromagic site, and the general picture was of a benign experience, with one posting even making mention of a picnic! Seemed ideal for ushering in the balmy days and light nights!
And so it was with a tremendous sense of growing excitement at the prospect of another classic hill day that Kev picked me up at 7.30 am (6.30 in real money) in his shiny new VW. No more low slung, bone shaking, suspension-like-some-sort-of-medieval-torture-device vehicular transportation for him!
Some nagging doubts began to infiltrate my still groggy mind as we drove northwards off the Drumochter Summit and could make out a fairly heavy looking blanket of cloud sitting squarely above the Cairngorms. Still, it seemed quite pleasant as we pulled into a space at the end of the road just beyond Glenmore Lodge and got togged up. Darren had been on a course up at Glenmore Lodge over the previous day or two and had suggested he might meet us there and join up. I had texted him as we approached Aviemore to enquire as to whether he was on for it or not, but had heard nothing back. A quick scout around the various car parks turned up no sign of his car and so Kev and I headed off along the track towards the little green lochan.
As we set off just before 9.30, a fine drizzle was settling in, but nothing too worrying at this stage. I had opted not to wear my amazing bulletproof Haglöfs trousers with thermal leggings, anticipating on the evidence of my last couple of outings that it might be a bit too warm for such an arrangement on the first day of what surely promises to be a Barbecue Summer. Instead I was attired in my light ALS trousers with Berghaus Deluge Pants over the top.
We soon arrived at the lochan which on a fairly dull day like today, seemed to shine evern brighter green than usual. This was sadly to turn out to be the only splash of any colour other than white or grey we would get all day.
We took the right fork in the track just before the Ryvoan Bothy and started heading towards the north ridge of Bynack More. At the bridge over the River Nethy there was a bright orange tent pitched (OK, that was quite colourful I guess) but no sign of human life.
We were making decent time as we began to climb the ridge and soon passed a group of four male walkers. One guy definitely seemed to be leading the others so I guess they were a group from Glenmore Lodge out for the day. We passed one another a few times as Kev and I stopped for a drink or a quick snack, but as we passed the 700-800 metre mark and things started to really close in, we pulled away and they were lost in the gloom behind us.
I think at this point I will spare myself (and others) the full horrific ordeal of having to relive the rest of the day in fine detail. It should suffice to say that there then followed what is unquestionably the most shocking, miserable and unpleasant day on the hill I have ever experienced. A brief synopsis goes something like this:
• Stunning views of absolutely sweet hee-haw
• A feeling similar to being industrially sand blasted in the face (and yes, I had forgotten my snow goggles)
• Both my pairs of gloves (including the pair which a salesperson in Craigdon in Perth had recently sworn on his mother’s life were about the most waterproof things on the planet) becoming instantly waterlogged
• My hands being so frozen stiff that they were rendered useless for anything
• Having to resort to drinking by sucking on my sodden balaclava
• Having my hat blown off and only realising when we finally got back down to relative shelter from the blizzard
• Being unable to properly do up my crampon straps
• Snow and ice the consistency of the horrible mush you get at the bottom of Slush Puppies
• Going arse over nipple into a drift and shredding my trousers with my crampons
• Taking the wrong line off the summit and getting lost, resulting in a long march back through a swamp the size of the Baltic Sea
Now, I freely admit that this last point was our own fault and it amounted to nothing less than being complacent and lazy and not bothering to check the map (which was by now reduced to a pulp) and compass in the face of a howling blizzard, but rather to simply trust our hill sense to take the same line off as we had ascended on. To be fair, we had checked that there were no major crags or cliffs in the area, but were just so damn scunnered and desperate to get off the hill. A salutary lesson learned.
Anyway, the box is ticked (which was one of only two positives to be taken from the day). We claimed the scalp of Bynack More, but this bad boy gave us a severe kicking in the process! For the record, the other positive was a pint and a bag of crisps next to the fire in the Bothy Bar of the Atholl Arm Hotel on the way back down the A9 (most of which for the record was bathed in glorious sunshine!)
British Summer Time eh? What’s it all about?
P.S. Pictures are at a premium for this Once in a Lifetime Mountain Experience and I have yet to check the camera to see that it is still functioning, let alone whether it contains anything worth looking at. If it does, I will post pictures up later!
