Summer Munros 2005 - fifty years on
18 September 2006 08:37,
Phill
Williams wrote:
Old (very old) members may remember Miles Hutchinson, who joined ULMC and then ULGMC for a couple of meets in the late forties and early fifties. Last summer, 2005, Miles rang. Would I like to help make up a party for a celebratory ascent of Ben Hope?
I remembered that Miles has always been an inveterate bothy man, whereas I abandoned bothies for much more comfortable accommodation many years ago. So with the proviso that we avoided bothies, I agreed.
“Don’t worry,” Miles said. “We’ll go upmarket: I’ll book the Youth Hostel.”
I was quite relieved when he rang a week or so later to regret that the Youth Hostel was full, but uneasy to hear that he’d found a self-catering cottage for only £6 a night.
So in August we drove up to the Crask Inn cottage, taking in a couple of Marilyns on the way over the Struie. If you’re familiar with Northern Scotland, you’ll know that the Crask Inn is on one of the loneliest of roads, halfway between Lairg and Altnaharra, with no other habitation for miles in either direction. The apprehension I felt about the standard of £6 a night accommodation soon disappeared. The cottage, directly opposite the Inn, was remarkably well equipped – towels and bed-linen provided, hot water, central heating, fridge, etc. The driving rain and wind the next morning meant we were reluctant to leave these comforts for Ben Hope, and so because of the conditions we decided to climb by the ordinary route, rather than the North ridge.
Still in cloud and rain, we photographed Miles standing on the summit trig point, enjoyed a rapid glass of bubbly, wolfed the slices of cake, and headed back down the mountain to a superb celebratory meal in the Crask Inn.
And what were we celebrating? The fiftieth anniversary of Miles’s first completion of the Munros, on Ben Hope, August 10th, 1955.
Old (very old) members may remember Miles Hutchinson, who joined ULMC and then ULGMC for a couple of meets in the late forties and early fifties. Last summer, 2005, Miles rang. Would I like to help make up a party for a celebratory ascent of Ben Hope?
I remembered that Miles has always been an inveterate bothy man, whereas I abandoned bothies for much more comfortable accommodation many years ago. So with the proviso that we avoided bothies, I agreed.
“Don’t worry,” Miles said. “We’ll go upmarket: I’ll book the Youth Hostel.”
I was quite relieved when he rang a week or so later to regret that the Youth Hostel was full, but uneasy to hear that he’d found a self-catering cottage for only £6 a night.
So in August we drove up to the Crask Inn cottage, taking in a couple of Marilyns on the way over the Struie. If you’re familiar with Northern Scotland, you’ll know that the Crask Inn is on one of the loneliest of roads, halfway between Lairg and Altnaharra, with no other habitation for miles in either direction. The apprehension I felt about the standard of £6 a night accommodation soon disappeared. The cottage, directly opposite the Inn, was remarkably well equipped – towels and bed-linen provided, hot water, central heating, fridge, etc. The driving rain and wind the next morning meant we were reluctant to leave these comforts for Ben Hope, and so because of the conditions we decided to climb by the ordinary route, rather than the North ridge.
Still in cloud and rain, we photographed Miles standing on the summit trig point, enjoyed a rapid glass of bubbly, wolfed the slices of cake, and headed back down the mountain to a superb celebratory meal in the Crask Inn.
And what were we celebrating? The fiftieth anniversary of Miles’s first completion of the Munros, on Ben Hope, August 10th, 1955.