For many club hillwalkers, summer is the season of the blank calendar, the comforting rhythm of club trips swept out from under their feet. But the lack of structure has not stopped our members from getting out in the hills. On the contrary! With the freedom to go where they want, when they want, for as long as they want, and with all the light of long summer days, summer is also a season of opportunity.
Some of those members have kindly agreed to share some of their stories from their summer adventures. But first, the essential updates!
Trip dates
We have now booked all of our first-semester trips and almost all our second-semester trips! Get them in the calendar!
Semester One
- Arrochar (day trip), 23rd and 24th September 2023
- Cairngorm Lodge, 13th – 15th October 2023
- Glen Nevis SYHA, 27th – 29th October 2023
- Ratagan SYHA, 10th – 12th November 2023
- Ballachulish Village Hall, 24th – 26th November 2023
- Eskdale YHA, 8th – 10th December 2023
Semester Two
- Ullapool SYHA, 26th – 28th January 2024
- Kinlochleven, 9th – 11th February 2024
- Crianlarich, 23rd – 25th February 2024
- Glencoe SYHA (Alumni Trip), 8th – 10th March 2024
- Torridon SYHA , 5th – 7th April
- Oxford Mountaineering Club Hut (Snowdonia), 19th – 22nd April (three nights)
- Broadford SYHA, 24th – 27th May (three nights)
Arran adventures
Now, as we all know, if there are no Munros in a bit of country, it is technically classified as completely flat. However, that doesn’t stop it from providing plenty of entertainment to a proper gang of hillwalkers, such as Ewen Watson, Calum Duffus-Hodson, Audrey Kateri and Emily Topness! This is Emily’s telling of their trip round the Arran Coastal Way.
On a cloudy May’s early morning, I heaved my 65L rucksack through sleepy Edinburgh streets to Waverley station. Visible from metres away in her signature bright orange Crocs, I found Audrey bursting with excitement at Platform 9. Shortly after, Calum appeared looking ready for adventure, and our trio boarded the train headed towards Glasgow. Leaving Queen Street station, we marched through Glasgow to Glasgow Central. We boarded our train as frantic messages of ‘Ewen? Ewen??’ were fired across the group chat. Just as the train started to move, Ewen, our fearless leader, strode down the train car with a baguette in hand. Our group complete at last, we arrived at Ardrossan Harbour to catch the ferry to Arran. Our noble quest had begun.
The Arran Coastal Way is a 65-mile circular route around the island, covering trails, forest tracks, beaches, road, rock scrambles, and, if you do it right, the occasional luxury hotel. We began our journey heading north from Brodick and towards Goat Fell. We rambled up the 874 metre hill, ditched our packs halfway, and made a rainy summit. After descending, we continued our hike in search of a place to camp as rain clouds loomed. The next morning we set out early, accompanied by red sandstone outcrops and coastal views. At a pit stop in Lochranza, we had the best sandwiches we’d ever had in our lives as the miles began to catch up with us. On Day 3, we detoured to Machrie Moor. While the standing stones did not allow Audrey and I to travel in time, we discovered that the imposing stones are approximately two Calums tall.
On the morning of our fourth day, everyone was quiet. To our surprise, Audrey and I had discovered that it is indeed possible for the two of us to run out of things to talk about. With around 25 miles remaining, we plodded our aching feet across soft sand under a bleak sky. Scrambling across large rocks hugging the coastline, we paused to sign up for the next hillwalking trip (success!). Feeling like the truest hillwalkers for signing up for a walk during a walk, we persevered on.
At Glenashdale Falls (Eas a’ Chrannaig) we realised we needed to camp one more night. We hobbled into Lamlash in search of a hot meal and a pint. Unwelcome at the first pub we tried (who would turn away such weary, albeit dirty, travellers?), we were thankful the Glenisle Hotel received us with warm Scottish hospitality and local Arran brews. Stepping out of the hotel restaurant to the serenade of bagpipes being played on a boat across the water, we camped comfortably in a field with only five miles ahead of us.
The Arran Coastal Way was a worthy challenge across 74 miles and four and a half days that strengthened our friendship and love of hillwalking. The hardcore hillwalkers we are, we had less than 48 hours in Edinburgh before heading to Skye for the final club trip of the academic year. I will conclude this piece with our motivational phrase on Arran: ‘Onwards and flatwards!’
by Emily Topness
A dream holiday?
Meanwhile, our eminent President is yet to have been seen sitting still since the end of the previous academic year. Among her many adventures, she has walked solo over the Alps from Munich to Venice. I’ll hand it over to her!
For my holiday this year, I walked across the eastern Alps from Munich to Venice on Der Traumpfad or The Dreamway. It took me 32 days to complete the journey, over 600 km in distance and over 20,000 metres of ascent.
Starting in the industrial city of Munich I walked south for two and a half days beside the river Isar before entering the German Pre-Alps. Two days later I crossed into Austria where I first traversed the Karwendel range, dropped down into the Inn valley and then re-ascended the mountains south of Innsbruck called the Tux Alps. The final Austrian section was across the Zillertal Alps before I walked into Italy on the thirteenth day of my journey. From here I walked through valleys and forests towards the northern Dolomites, reaching them three days later.
Nine days of incredible walking followed, over the northern Dolomites, around the Marmolada massif and across the Civetta group before dropping down to Belluno. During the Dolomites section, I overlapped with both the Alta Via 1 and 2 for two and and a half days each, so these were the busiest (and most amazing) sections of my walk. After Belluno, I had a final ascent up to Col Visentin before dropping down onto the Venetian plain and meeting the river Piave that I followed for 4 days into my bustling final destination, Venice.
I stayed mostly in mountain huts that provide delicious home-cooked meals, and are where I met lots of other walkers, who were almost exclusively German. I used the Cicerone guidebook by John Hayes as well as GPX to navigate and found route finding largely easy because paths were so well signposted (and I am not known to be a strong navigator). The walking was definitely tough in some sections, and I personally struggled the most on hot cloudless days (if you don’t know me, I am very much pale and very much ginger and very much covering myself in suncream on such days), but most reasonably fit walkers would be able to do this walk and I couldn’t recommend it enough! The weather was definitely not always sunny, with just as many foggy and wet days as well as lots of immense thunderstorms, often during the evening, so early starts were necessary. The mountain huts were sociable and cosy and I sometimes stayed in dorm rooms with 20+ people so this is not the walk for you if you enjoy solitude.
The highlights of my walk were crossing the Sella group in the northern Dolomites that included some exciting Via Ferrata sections, swimming in a stunning alpine lake called Lago Coldai, entering the Karwendel range in the north of Austria and of course all the lovely fellow walkers I met along the way.
by Isla Burslem
The Mamore 10: the long way round
And last of all, my own contribution! In June, I came up with the idea of walking from sunrise to sunset on the solstice. I’d done a similar thing on the winter solstice one year, but that was less than half the length… luckily for me, Rowan Atkinson and Ahmed Ali both, having more guts than sense, agreed to keep me company! This is my account.
None of us really slept the night before. At Kinlochleven’s lofty latitude, even at midnight, the midsummer night was still gently glowing through the curtains. At twenty-five past four, with no alarm, we rose, quietly slipped on our walking gear and set off.
The morning seemed easy. The slog up the rough Loch Eilde Mòr path was soon over, and then we were marching up to the corrie with our pace almost unbroken. This was the clearest weather of the day, and in our only real break, we gazed at the back of Aonach Eagach illuminated in gold. Twice we saw ptarmigan hens with chicks, and we saw other, smaller creatures, making the best of their own little summers.
But even in the stillest June days, the Mamores don’t consent to remain easy for long. Our first summit, Sgùrr Eilde Mòr, required us to slide uphill on very steep gravelly slopes, often without any secure holds at all. The second, Binnein Beag, was much easier work, though the approach path was unusually picturesque.
Meanwhile, Sgùrr Eilde Mòr gave us fine views of its brother, Binnein Mòr, the highest summit in the Mamores. We would be tackling it from an uncommon aspect, and it took some careful studying and comparison against the map to be sure which way was our route. Once at the top, we drank in the last drops of clear weather, and braced ourselves as wet fog clouds swept in to drown the Mamore ridge.
In some ways, it was an odd choice of walk for me. Although the route we’ve chosen includes ten Munros, I am not a bagger, and that is not a motivating factor. Indeed, my first idea for a route for this day had no Munros in it at all. Nor am I a fitness geek. I have no desire to get athlete-fit, push my limits or prove my mettle.
One of my favourite things about this route, and one of the main reasons I chose it, is the fact that the route is circular. I have always been attracted to circular routes. They have a peculiarly satisfying symmetry. So too does a walk from dawn to dusk. By never retracing your steps, you only ever move forward, and yet, you return to the same place where you started. It is a beautiful paradox. Beginning and end. Alpha and omega. Dawn to dusk. Dark to dark.
Having pushed on through the raincloud over Na Gruagaichean, heads down, we’ve managed to get a little off-track. It probably costs us about an hour. Not a problem – we were ahead of time to begin with, and we have two hours of extra time baked into the schedule.
Summit after summit, we march ever on. Stob Coire a’ Chàirn. An Garbhanach and An Gearanach. The ridges seem to be slowing us down. Am Bodach. Sgùrr an Iubhair, the Devil’s Ridge and Sgùrr a’ Mhaim. Finally, as we descend to the Lochan Coire nam Mìseach to refill our empty bottles, I get the map out and do some sums. As I slowly figure things out, I gradually realise the news isn’t good.
‘We’ve been falling behind for quite a while now,’ I explain. ‘If we keep losing time at the current rate, it will be a quarter to one in the morning before we get back. I think we should do one more summit, and then we should decide whether to take the escape route down.’
Neither companion is particularly pleased to hear this. Pulling out at Stob Bàn will leave just one of the ten Munros unsummitted. Still, we’ve been walking for about thirteen hours now: longer than any of us has ever walked before continuously. There would be not a drop of shame in pulling out early.
Despite that, that news seems to give us the kick up the backside we needed. A second wind whips us up Stob Bàn twelve minutes ahead of Naismith. We actually cheer, and with no more thought given to the escape route, we march along the gentle shoulder of Mullach nan Coirean to our final summit. Taking Alex’s advice from his trip the previous week, we carefully avoid the crags coming down, hoist ourselves over a deer fence and glide home along the West Highland Way.
On the final stretch, we pass right under the snouts of several of the southernmost Mamores, as if taking the reel of our day and rewinding it at high speed. Stob Bàn. Am Bodach. Na Gruagaichean. Sgùrr an Iubhair. Atop one, I see a summit cairn, buffetted by clouds, disappearing into the distance high above. Suddenly, the hills double in size before my eyes. No more are these hills the playground I set out in; these great darkening purple giants loom large as the sun sets behind us.
We march straight into our campsite and more or less straight into the showers. As soon as I start to strip off, my body finally gives in. I move delicately, as if were I to move too quickly something might snap. Despite the light, sleep is long and total.
by Joe Carstairs
That’s it!
Thanks for reading, and until next time, happy hillwalking!
If you’re a club member or alumna/alumnus and have any stories, photos, sketches, poems, songs or interpretive dance routines inspired by your recent hillwalking adventures, we’d love to share them on this blog! Get in touch at edunihillwalkingalumni@gmail.com.