This contribution to the logbook comes a long time after the event, in response to the logbook co-ordinator's appeal for someone to plug the gap.

I am sure of the date as I still have the relevant newsletter on my computer, but there seems to be widespread amnesia about the meet. I have asked quite a few members if they had any recollections, but only one or two remembered going. Attendance was not large, about twenty, but some of them must have been there.

The weather was reasonable and quite bright, although the Cruachan group remained in thick cloud all day. My party, which included Allison McLaren and half a dozen unremembered others (sorry!), did Beinns a'Chochuill and Eunaich, starting up Lairig Noe. The roar of wind up above persuaded us to have an early lunch in a sunny sheltered spot, but when we got to the top the conditions were not as bad as expected. On the traverse to Eunaich there were good views to Loch Etive and Ben Starav.

Another party did the route recommended in the newsletter, the "Dalmally Horseshoe" round Coire Chreachainn, taking in Stob Diamh and its north-east top.

The day concluded with a pleasant hour or two in the bar of the Dalmally Hotel. A third hill group, consisting of Ingrid Parker, Douglas Philp, Bill McIntyre and Robert Bone, had been practising winter skills in one of Cruachan's eastern corries. On returning to the hotel (after dark) they were "disappointed" to find nearly everyone else had gone.

David Foster

December 2004