Sunday 12 January 2014

Clashgour Day Trip

A hill for the new year!

Loch Tulla:

With a forecast little better than the day of the spring tide, we expected to do no more than drive to Victoria Bridge, walk in to Clashgour, spend some time with old friends, and walk back. Clashgour, Glasgow University Mountaineering Club's hut, provided many formative experiences for me, and we hoped to catch up with friends staying the night. But the weather was lovely on the drive up, snowy hills cloud free, and we knew we would climb a hill.

Looking towards Clashgour:


A glorious morning soon clouded over, but it remained mild and virtually windless. Hungry red deer stags, bellies dark with peat, loitered around a saltlick near the track, posing for photos.

Stags:


At the hut we headed up towards the col between Stob Ghabhar and Stob a Coire Odhair, our hill now in cloud but still a finer day than expected.

En route to Stob a Coire Odhair:


Three hours I thought our walk would take, but thanks to hard icy snow on top and the necessity to cut steps, it took four. "I've been up this hill seven times before," I said. "This is my thirty-seventh time," said one companion!


Back down, we had a cup of tea in the old doss, looking much better after a recent refurbishment, and caught up with the friends who were staying the night. It was crowded with nine in the hut, but the record number sleeping over is a barely credible thirty-three!

Clashgour:


My New Year Resolution to do more hills couldn't have had a better start...

2 comments:

blueskyscotland said...

Great photographs. One of my favourite mountains in that area and it's good to see the hut still going strong. Being a G.U. facility maybe at some future date
they will develop the technology to get Tardis like dimensions within it as I seem to remember it being just as small on the inside as it looks :0)

Robert Craig said...

Great respecters of the laws of physics, GU, and their mountaineering club hut is no exception. It is even smaller on the inside than it is on the outside :)