Hospitality Industry Trust (HIT) Scotland Appeal

Posts Tagged ‘training’

Training is taking place but in a different style from climbing Munro’s! If this snow keeps on falling we’ll have our own Munro in the street!! Less than a month to go now and at least the base layers are doing the job! Might take my snow shovel to the top of the mountain…just in case!

Sunday 26th September

Given the weather that we have braved bagging Munro’s over “The Summer” , it was great to have an Autumn hit of sunshine earlier today.  We had seen Ben Lawers when we did Meall Ghaordiadh, as well as in the distance on other walks,  and knew it was high on the To Do Wish  List.

Beinn Ghlas on the way to Lawers gave us a double Munro bag, but had we planned it  better or been able to predict the weather we may have done more.  There were a few other walkers up there doing 7 in the one outing !

Today has taken us to 16 Munro’s – a figure that was put into perspective by a guy from Brechin that we met near the top of Ben Lawers – he was at Munro 83 – having done all of them twice before !!

Ben Lawers is 10th Highest of the Munros, but has a good path all the way to the top and there were lots of other walkers out and about .  Well worth a visit for bagging a Munro, or 2 , or indeed 7 !

Beinn Ghlas - 3619 Ft

Ben Lawers - 3983 Ft

Munro 1 Sgairneach Mhor

The plan had been to try and do Ben Nevis, but with miserable and misty sounding   long range weather forecasts, that plan was put on hold !

12 of us instead opted to meet at Lay By 81 on the A9 , the plan being to take on the Munros of Sgairneach Mhor (Big Stony Hillside) 3251 Ft and Bein Udlamain (Gloomy Mountain) – 3317.

The start out was wee bit wet and waterproofs, gloves and hats needed.  As usual an hour or so in it was time to remove layers as the sun was out.

Really nice walk, beautiful scenery .  Despite it’s Gaelic translation Bein Udlamain wasn’t that Gloomy at all (although the Cairn was a bit messy with rusty bits of fence) and the group decision was that since we could see the Cairn of A’Mharconaich (The Horse Place)- 3199Ft   that we might as well do that too !

3 Munros in 6 hours wasn’t bad going , and despite the frequent clothing layer adjustments, it was mainly dry and warm.

There were 12 other walkers (and a Collie Dog)  that we saw / passed on our day out  - guess that on a sunday Ben Nevis would have been far, far busier – so over all we had made the correct call !

Burn Crossing

Blue Skies and first clothes change stop

Munro 3 - A'Mharconaich

Where we had been

Meall Ghaordaidh (Pronounced myowl jirdee)

3409 Ft .   Sunday 15^th August

With plans for the afternoon the best option for this walk was to set out early (rather than postpone).

Kathy and I got up 4.10am, DC arrived at Powmill 5.10am, roadworks on the Glendevon meant that we had to detour to get to Crieff to meet Robert and Elaine at 6.10am.

Got to Killin for around 7.00am and were ready to hit the hill by 7.10am.

The (almost) hourly photos below show our progress.

The benefit of starting early was that we had the hill to ourselves and it is a great feeling when walkers just starting out as you return comment how impressed they are that you have already bagged the Munro and it’s not even lunchtime.

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There are no post walk photos – but the rest of Sunday involved, beer, lawnmowers, beer, lunch, snooze, beer and in DC’s case a BBQ (where there possibly was beer)!

7.10am. Ready to set out

8.10 am

9.10am and still a bit to go

10.00 - Top of Meall Ghaiordaidh

11.10am Easier on the way down

12 Noon and back to where it all started. Calvin's face says it all !!

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This was a first for the Kilimanjaro expedition! Firstly we were piped to the summit of Lochnagar by the ever energetic Billy Bell, and secondly, he provided some much welcomed fine wines for the climbers at the end! All in all it was music to our ears in every sense!

The climb covered 20 kilometers of beautiful scenery and some cliff side walks that weren’t for the faint hearted. A tremendous achievement all round and roll on the next challenge!

With Kilimanjaro expedition getting ever closer I opted this year for a Highland Walking trip (rather than a Portuguese Golfing break).

Beauly for 3 days was the initial plan, but set off a day early so that Elaine could do the Stob Dearg Buachaille Etive Mor that we had done as a group in June.

The cloud cover was even lower than when we were all there – so we only did the one this time round. We knew all would be fine even if the weather closed right in – car park with 6 RAF Mountain rescue vehicles (training exercise) was reassuring.

Tuesday saw us in Glen Affric. Early start and beautiful scenery. 30 minutes in and trousers converted to shorts and the sunglasses on.

Double Munro Bag on a fairly well established route – first stage up Tom a Choinich (3648 Ft) –, which still had pockets of snow in sheltered areas. It seemed miles looking from the Cairn at Tom a Choinich to the Cairn at Toll Creagach (3458 Ft), but didn’t take that long once we got going. 8 hours from starting in sunshine to getting back to sunshine at the end. Great route

Despite seeing the BBC weather on the Wednesday morning news and the forecast of rain, rain and more rain – set out anyway – a 12 mile flat route round Loch Affric was always planned, so the low cloud not an issue. A few swollen burns coming down off the mountains (the ones that we had climbed the day before) that had to be waded through , but other than that it was a fine jaunt out. It was one of the good old Scottish weather days of “Wet Rain”, not “Cold Rain”!

There are 17 Munroes in the Affric and Strathglass area, so am sure that I will be back another time to Bag a few more and would recommend it, even in the rain!

Although have to say the midgies there are a hardy breed and had no fear at all of Skin So Soft. Worse than the midgies though for me were the clegs – a few bites resulted in a visit to the pharmacist in Beauly to get antihistamine and cream to reduce the swelling on bitten finger, hand & throat.

Hello,

Having been involved in the training walks that Alan Hill and David Cochrane were doing it was a privilege and total surprise to be asked to join the team going to climb Kilimanjaro for HIT Scotland.  An opportunity not to be missed.

I missed the deadline for the Catering In Scotland Magazine article, but thought it best to stick to the same format to tell you more about me.

Occupation: MD of Stag Shopfitting Ltd, specialists joinery manufacturing company in Stirling .  Have fitted many Hotels and Restaurants throughout the UK

Reason for taking part in the climb: I have recently started some serious hill walking and found it really exhilarating, so when the chance of going on this exciting challenge was presented to me I couldn’t resist.  The fact that I was helping towards a very worthy cause made it all the more worthwhile.

Likes: Golf, walking and spending time with my family, but also very fond of gourmet food and wine! Hence the need for the exercise to keep me in shape!

Dislikes: Late starts and missing the best part of the day, have to admit that I am an early bird.

Training to date: Spent quite a few Sundays recently bagging Munros with fellow sufferers, but, although tough and freezing, thoroughly enjoyed myself!  Perfect too for getting to know the GPS better  (boys and their toys!)

A lesser known fact about me: In 1993 I was responsible for surveying and manufacturing the shopfittings and transporting them to  Russia to then furnish  the first Scottish shop in St.Petersburg.  .This shop was then opened on St Andrews day (appropriate since St.Andrew is the Patron Saint of both nations).

Twenty two of the Kilimanjaro (and support families!) expedition met up on a sunny Sunday morning at Loch Lomond to be greeted by Graham from Cameron House with ample bacon and sausage butties washed down with a juice or two.

We then started off, forgetting  to look at the signpost and ended up doing the much more strenuous West route up to the top, firstly the top of Ptarmigan and then traversing onto the peak of Ben Lomond.

The last few metres were scary, scrambling up a steep rock face with the wind blowing all around! The views from the top were spectacular and as there were so many of us, some other climbers thought a bus party had arrived! A quicker descent followed down the route we should have taken, and I think all agreed, we had done the climb the right way as going down the steep side would have been pretty tricky!

After a quick look, back at base camp, at the Catering in Scotland magazine with its excellent article, some people headed off, and others went to the Boathouse at Cameron House for a fantastic informal bite to eat. Everyone had a story or two about their thoughts on Kilimanjaro….all very positive!

I bet everyone slept well on the Sunday night….ready to take on Ben Nevis next month!

As the Kilimanjaro expedition is climbing Ben Lomond on the 30^th May, I thought I should do the honourable thing and check out the route in advance.

This involved the help of a generous friend who gave me a lift to the top! The views are stunning and the path looks okay….but easier to travel by helicopter rather than hiking!!

Something for Mr Thomson to think about!!

Alan, Robert, Kathy, Sue and Elaine braved Schiehallion setting out from Crieff at 9.00 am in the midst of rain, rain and even more rain.

There was doubt about even going , but by the time we reached the Foss Forest it had at least dried up.

The first part of the track is not that bad, with man made steps, but the last part involves scrambling over boulders.   Oh and the deceptive Cairns on the way make you believe you have reached the top, when there is about an hour and a half still to go.  Well worth it though for the views of Loch Rannoch and Loch Tummel.

Another Munro bagged

Completed in a very respectable 4 hours and 45 minutes.