In which we learn about an alumni marriage, hear about a turtle on top of the Cobbler, and get the latest from Welcome Week and our first trip of the year. Emily Topness contributes her poetic reflections on getting drenched at Arrochar.
Upcoming trips
We’ll be having our first weekend trip of the year at Glenmore Youth Hostel, as we did last year! Unfortunately, Dougal the Dastardly Dug will not be in attendance as he was last year. On the bright side, that considerably reduces the odds of anyone having to pick up excrement from the hostel floor, as long as Hamish remembers his nappy supply. We’ll be leaving on Friday the 13th, meaning signup is 8am on the EUSA website this coming Tuesday — don’t forget to be prompt if you want a space!
After that, we’ll be at Glen Nevis on Friday the 27th, meaning signup at 8am the previous Tuesday as per usual. As always, all details of future trips can be found on the upcoming events page.
Bits and bobs
Hillwalkers are being reminded to use online resources to check for stalking information. Stalking is both a crucial contributor to the Highland economy and increasingly necessary to protect vulnerable ecosystems from overgrazing. As a result, NatureScot, in partnership with the National Access Forum and the Association of Deer Management Groups, has reiterated their encouragement for hillwalkers to use the ‘Heading for the Hills’ online tool to find out the latest information about stalking before they set out.
Mountains on Stage is an international film festival celebrating the best of mountain film, and will be visiting Edinburgh at the Assembly Rooms for one night only on Wednesday the 13th of December. More details and booking information, for Edinburgh and many other cities across twenty countries, can be found on the Mountains on Stage website.
The club held its traditional October ceilidh, in the same venue as last year, the Lauriston Hall on Lady Lawson Street. The dependable Fiona Sykes, our very own Social Secretary, was of course leading the band. And we of course didn’t forget our traditional October ceilidh photo!
An Island Wedding…
Many of our alumni will remember one or both of Mairi MacDonald and Harry Carstairs, your correspondent’s brother. If not, I won’t say you’ve had a lucky escape, but I won’t repeat any of what was said in the after-dinner speeches, either… for indeed, Harry and Mairi have been married!
Not content with such dusty old traditions as getting married somewhere that doesn’t require a four-hour CalMac to get to, they decided to have their wedding away out on the beautiful isle of Coll. At times during the ceilidh, the cold, blue Minch outside the door, though generally a pretty sombre sort, was seen to be dancing along to the jigs and reels — though we grant we’d done pretty good work on the wine by that point. Everyone in attendance, including a very large contingent of Hillwalking Club alumni, had a very good time celebrating Harry and Mairi’s commitment to one another and wishing them every happiness in their marriage.
Harry’s parents — and therefore mine — were both members of the Hillwalking Club when they were courting. Can we therefore call it a second-generation club conjugation, even if our parents technically met in the Snowsports Club? Your correspondent reckons it still counts.
A warm welcome
Welcome Week is our annual chance to seduce another generation of unwitting freshers into our bizarre masochistic cult of pretending splodging through bogs is a good day out, provided the bog in question be over three thousand feet. The harvest was indeed plentiful, though the workers were not too few, as Ellie reports.
The 2023/24 season of Hillwalking started strong as we exploded into Welcome Week armed and ready to introduce potential new members to the club. Chris was on it with the Instagram and flyer printing, Isla was hastily putting together a presentation for our welcome talk, Silas was frantically replying to emails, Audrey was on and off the phone with Pear Tree, and the rest of us… helping out where we could.
Monday 11th September — The one with the Sports Fair
Ah, the sports fair. Our first opportunity to entice new students to join the club, and what a success it was! With one thousand flyers to give out (thanks Chris), we were non-stop chatting to people about the joys of Hillwalking and our upcoming events. The most common question: “what’s the difference between you and mountaineering?” By the end I think we all had the response memorised. A lot of questions were also asked about the ‘sharp pointy things,’ that is, crampons and ice axes. We met people from all over the world who were wanting to explore Scotland as well as those from closer home, who were well acquainted with the Scottish Munros. Hamish even got a lovely mention on the club Instagram story. Thank you to Sasha, Isla, Chris, Ellie, Hannah and Hamish for helping out that day.
Tuesday 12th September — The one with the pretty sunset and football match
Our welcome talk and walk up Salisbury Crags attracted the masses as we led close to two hundred people through the streets of Edinburgh and up to the crags. We started by meeting at the McEwan Hall, where Isla and Ellie couldn’t believe that all the people were there for Hillwalking. With megaphone in hand (kindly provided by Silas), Isla addressed the crowd and, just like the pied piper, led the way to the lecture theatre for our welcome talk. We didn’t think we’d fill the lecture theatre (capacity 120) but boy did we fill it! All the seats were taken as well as people sitting on the stairs at both sides and the floor at the front. Silas, Ellie and Isla energised the crowd with an engaging and entertaining presentation, with support from other committee members.
The evening continued with a walk up Salisbury Crags, just in time for sunset. The views were incredible and a great way to introduce new students to Edinburgh as well as the club. Everyone was chatting, getting to know each other, and most importantly, no one fell off the crag. Due to the masses of people we even got a mention on a random Reddit post that had a photo of us all from Holyrood Park below.
Not expecting this many people to still be with us, we were worried on our approach to Pear Tree where Audrey was eagerly waiting for us. However, upon our arrival the pub was packed because, unknown to us when booking, the England vs Scotland match was on. The bouncers were naturally hesitant on letting us all in, but eventually a few of us were accepted and pushed through the fans to get an overpriced pint. The night then of course ended with the remaining stragglers in The Southsider, munching on rice cakes and crisps bought from Tesco.
Friday 15th September — The one with board games in the pub
Our original plan for Friday was to head to the Meadows for a lovely picnic, but Scottish weather had other ideas and was forecasted to be downpour. So instead, we went where we knew best: Southsider. The afternoon was spent chatting, playing card games and socialising with the prospective members. And we had a good crowd too! We managed to fill the Richmond room and, because the pub wasn’t too busy, people found other tables. Meanwhile, the rest of the committee were busy behind the scenes organising logistics for the weekend plans to the Pentlands and teasing Chris who forgot what date and time we meet for our weekly pub social.
Saturday 16th / Sunday 17th September — The ones with the highland coos
Our day trips to the Pentlands were a great success, with a large turn out both days. The weather didn’t put people off on Sunday, but overall the weather was typical of Scotland — a good introduction for the new members. Both days followed the same route, starting from Craigdon and heading up through Hillend to Caerketton Hill and along to Allermuir Hill. The views over the city and Pentlands were beautiful, even with the low cloud. Everyone who attended was in high spirits, grateful to get out of the city for the day.
A particular highlight for many were the highland cows that blocked our path, as Silas ushered everyone to keep moving. The committee chatted to prospective members, answering questions. The most common question: “what’s the difference between you and mountaineering?” Overall, both days were a great day out, everyone returning to the bus stop safe and sound.
Thank you to everyone who came along during our Welcome Week activities! Special thanks to the committee for making it possible and getting to the end in one piece. We are excited to see what this year has in stall.
Ellie Bestington
Good weather by Arrochar standards
I’ve been at the traditional freshers’ Arrochar day trip for the last three years, and I can confirm that this year was exceptionally good weather, for Arrochar. On Saturday anyway. In any case, a bad day on the hills is better than a good day anywhere else, as Audrey explains.
You never quite know how a day of hillwalking will turn out. Maybe you’ll see the most stunning views that only Tolkien could dream up. Maybe you’ll hike five hours only to glimpse a small cairn encased in a cloud. The weekend of the Arrochar day trips, members of the EUHWC seemed to experience both.
The weekend started bright and early Saturday morning. Dozens of new hillwalkers (called “NH” from here on out) rolled up to Pleasance Sports Center to catch a coach bus at 6.30am. Did the experienced hillwalkers (“EH”) ease them into the chaos of walk signup? Absolutely not. The walk organizers merely announced lots of numbers, questionably pronounced Gaelic names, and various levels of difficulty. From there, the NH’s then got to experience the pure rush that is pushing your way through a crowd to get a spot on your walk of choice.
After all that excitement, both EH’s and NH’s were ready for an amazing day of hillwalking.
And amazing it was. While I can’t speak for all the walks, mine and Emily Topness’ was memorable because of one particular person we met. Our route was pretty simple: summit Beinn Narnain, summit the Cobbler (Ben Arthur), head back to the car park. Beinn Narnain was achieved without incident and our NH’s got to experience their very first summit lunch and absolutely stunning views of the surrounding mountains. The Cobbler did not prove to be too difficult either, save for the last bit that required way more courage than some of us had expected.
That was when we saw him. Approaching the summit (and our group) was a young man, wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a giant stuffed turtle on his back.
I could only imagine the bet he lost to have to carry that thing all the way up to the top of a Corbett.
Honestly, after that, the rest of the day was uneventful, as some pleasant days can be. No-one got lost, everyone got on the bus in time, and we all were in our flats at reasonable hours.
I’m afraid I can’t say the same for Sunday.
The weather wasn’t nearly as lovely as the day before. High winds and visibility-reducing rain forced us to do low-level walks. Upon reaching the summit of Ben Vorlich, I was reminded of the strength of Scottish winds when I was nearly blown off of the top of the mountain. Still, it wasn’t a bad day. In fact, Calum, a truly experienced hillwalker, remarked to me that he thought Sunday was better than Saturday, even with the weather. My group made good time up and down the mountain and were even able to purchase hot chocolate from the small visitor center where we were to meet the coach. Everyone was reasonably comfortable and seemed to be in good spirits.
We knew we would have to wait for the coach–we had made it to the car park significantly earlier than planned. However, when the 4pm pickup time came and went, my group still found itself standing under the awning of a now-closed visitor center next to Loch Lomond. The rain had increased so much that waves crashed over the floating docks on the loch and the moored boats pulled against their tethers. Some members of the group had taken refuge inside the bathrooms, but a good portion of us remained outside watching for the coach.
Finally, after watching bus after bus go by, I decided to make a phone call. When Silas, one of the organizers of the trip, answered the phone, I could hear the cheery sounds of a pub in the background. Honestly, it was hard not to be a little jealous when I compared that noise to that of the pounding rain.
“Would you be able to check your parking lot for the bus?” I asked, thinking it had gone there first, “Honestly, it’s kind of miserable here.”
“Of course, we’ll go look,” the ever-happy Silas replied. And then, after a pause, he added sympathetically, “If it’s any consolation, it’s not great here either.”
Honestly, all I could do was laugh.
Eventually, the bus did make it. We loaded up and made our way back to Edinburgh, damp, but no worse for wear. The following Tuesday, I was happy to see that the rainy day hadn’t deterred too many of the NH’s, as a good number of them joined us at Southsider. If anything, I think that that weekend taught a lot of us of the joys of hillwalking in Scotland. Truly, you never know what you’re going to encounter. You can have sunshine, wind, clouds, snow, rain, hail, et cetera. You can meet exciting people or get way too acquainted with the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. No matter what you experience, however, many of us in the EUHWC have learned to live by the adage “a bad day in the hills beats a good day anywhere else.”
Audrey Sisel
Arrochar
Huddled sunrise in undertones
Fingers trace contour lines
We take a bearing towards
Years come full circle
Memories crowd together under
Narnain Boulders’ refuge
Heather clouding our footsteps
As first Munros are met
Beginnings folded into forest
Voices sing through summit mist
We rest shoulder to shoulder
Reaching out to
Grab each glimmer
From a raindrop studded sky
Emily Topness
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.
Alumni Officer EUHWC