MARTIN AND DONNA RYAN IN SCOTLAND

To be more precise Marty and Donna on Squareface in Garbh Choire, Beinn a`Bhuird, Cairngorms in a heatwave! Yessureee when the rest of the British Isles was cloaked in “CLAG” we were climbing in one of Scotland's remotest mountains in sweltering heat. It didn’t promise to be that way when we set off however. The forecast was for unsettled weather and rain. No matter we had our babysitter in place and armed with a GPS it was now or not for another 6 years, which is how long ago it was since we last attempted this route. On that occasion we bailed out after 3 hours having taken a wrong turn and again in inclement conditions.
There was to be no turning back this time. So to break the 10 mile walk in up a little we hired some mountain bikes and managed the first 8km by bike only to be caught up by a couple of walkers! We weren’t deterred, we reasoned that our packs were much heavier than their’s given that we had all our bivvy gear, full climbing rack and two ropes; (I had toyed with the idea of taking only one. I’m glad we took two) and the bikes would come into their own on the descent - all downhill! They did too. [Pic]
When we were almost at the ‘Sneck’ (the point at which you drop into Garbh Choire between Beinn a` Bhuird and Ben Avon (written about by John Taylor in 1618 in The Pennyless Pilgrimage) it started to rain and it got heavier and eventually became the all too familiar good ol' Scottish hill weather. Only slightly pissed off we drudged onward thinking oh well we tried, we’ve only walked thousands of miles loaded up like a couple of pack horses to be rained upon heavily, almost within sight of our goal. Good training for the alps I heard Marty mutter. I, and so is drinking 14 pints of Furstenburg and smoking Capstan full strengh until your lungs burst. Apparently good altitude training! Anyway I’m digressing. [Pic]
We eventually got to the Sneck and we were soaking and a bit demoralised. We set off to drop into Coire an Dubh Lochain to find the Bivvy which was under a large boulder in a boulder field with hundreds of other large boulders. Thank gawd for the GPS an amazing tool – it took us within 10 metre of the bivvy and I’m quite sure saved us much time that might otherwise have been spent searching for the bloody boulder in the pissing down rain and extremely poor visibility. The bivvy was dry and very dark. I couldn't help wondering how many people had stumbled in here in the winter having had an epic and being near to death? There was actually an old pair of ticounis boots in the back of the bivvy. I wonder if they were Tom Pateys?! [Pic]
Before I went to bed I said a little prayer to the mountain gods and the next day it was blue skies and ice cream. We climbed Squareface. The guide says it all when it describes the route as the superlative of superlatives.