Young Mountaineers

I was fortunate enough to work with two young lads (twins), Ben and Andrew and take them out on a two-day mini mountain expedition in the Loch Lomond area of Scotland. We started the night before going through packing lists, erecting tents and learning how to prepare your own food. After some map recces of potential planned routes with basic interpretation of weather forecasts, it wasn’t looking too great. The night ended with some great scran and heads down for an early start.

At day 1 we parked at Rowardennan and decided as the best weather window would be the next day, to walk North along the West Highland Way (WHW) and set up base camp at the Rowchoish Bothy. We covered loads of flora and fauna and some navigation working on speed, time and distance. I don’t think the lads realised it was going to be a combined maths, geography and science lesson along the 7.5km journey, which they managed to complete in 3.5 hours which was a really good effort carrying full exped bergans.

The Bothy was empty so we bagged our slots, and admin started with water replen. I conducted a quick recce for the start of day 2 and on my return we got the ropes out and practiced some basic security on steep ground before getting scran cooked and eaten. Big shout out to Expedition Foods which filled us with carbs. The Bothy started to fill with more teams all completing the WHW so we settled in with some card games and some episodes of American Dad before getting our heads down. 14 people in total spent the night, glad they were in a fixed shelter and not tents as the storm lashed through the early hours.

On day 2 we were the first team up. Good pack admin with hot breakers that the lads had prepared Sunday evening. Final check, nothing had been left behind and we were back on the trail by 0715hrs. We knew there was a weather front coming in from the NW by 1700hrs with heavy rain and strong winds, so the lads dug out blind and took an hour off their return journey back to the van. We then repacked with safe hill kit in lighter packs for the summit bid. I stuck to a full exped bergan as extra training for the Enduro214.

We decided to take the Ptarmigan track up the western spur, a harder and more technical route but less strain on the route back. 2 kilometres from the summit we could see it was shrouded in snow. There was a discussion to confirm it was safe to continue and by 1330hrs Ben and Andrew had bagged their first and the most southern Munro, Ben Lomond, standing at 974m! After taking in the atmosphere and capturing the standard trig point photo we headed off down the tourist route back to the van.

I felt extremely privileged to have guided these future mountaineers. A total of 28kms covered over two days with good old buddy-buddy systems and team work in place.