Wednesday, May 13, 2009

MTB WKND and An Teallach

This week is the first 5-day week I've had in over a month. Frankly, it's Tuesday and I don't know how I'm going to cope. I think my coping strategy will include looking back fondly on good times I've had one some of my recent long weekends.

A couple of weeks back a bunch of us headed up to the Great Glen to stay in a hostel and do some mountainbiking/hillwalking. It was a great group, made of of climbing buddies, workmates and some old friends from home. We cycled at Laggan Wolftrax on the Saturday, and Nevis Range (Leanachan Forest) on the Sunday. Excellent quality Red routes all round! On the Sunday quite a few folks went hillwalking instead of riding. I don't have many photos, there are more on Facebook from other people, but hopefully these give you a flavour of the weekend.








Encouraged by the weather exceeding our expectations, Mhairi and I stayed on for the Monday to climb An Teallach, a classic scramble in Torridon (well up north).


There were interesting landscapes up there.


We soon climbed into the cloud, so never got to see much of what we were climbing. Some attention to navigation was required until we got onto the ridge proper. This is Lord Berkley's Seat.



As we began the descent, we dropped below the cloud and got some views (including being able to see what we'd climbed for the first time). The guys who took this photo were lost and only got un-lost when they heard our voices. They managed to get lost despite using a GPS, and then they lost the GPS. I don't think I would have owned up to that.
Cool rocks, aye!


What we climbed