Nethy House



"Nethy House" is the name given to the club's pre-Christmas/pre-Easter/whenever we feel like it trip. We normally leave the day we breakup for Christmas holidays, spend 5 days in the Cairngorms, and return in time to get home for festive fun. The name of the trip comes from the place we stay, a large bunk/guesthouse a few miles from the pointy mountains.

The Place


Nethy House is a large bunkhouse situated in the Eastern Highlands of Scotland near the Cairngorms National Park. The village, Nethy Bridge is just North of Aviemore. Accommodation consists of multiple small 5/6 person dorms, whilst entertainment is provided by the fully-stocked bar which we run ourselves (indeed, this does causes a high degree of carnage) and the pool table, tv/dvd and plethora of hats.

More information about the place can we found on their website

Italic text==The Trip==

The club runs a five-day trip (i.e. four full days in the mountains) to Nethy House every year just before Christmas. Since the merger of the two university hiking clubs we have had averaged around 52 people a year on this trip. Normal this will be comprised of about 35 current students, about 12 regular ex-members, and 5 very ex-members. The accommodation, locality and people have made these trips legendary in UMHC history over the years.

The first trip was by UMIST Hiking and Mountaineering Club (UHMC) in 1999. A piece of UHMC memorabilia (a broom stick with the names of past chairs) is on display in the bar.

Classic Schedule
Friday: Leaving late Friday, stopping for fish & chips in Lockerbie, we arrive numerous hours later. Drinking starts upon arrival, and routes are planned for the following day.

Saturday: Getting up (still drunk?), we head out on the planned routes (or the winter skills session). After getting back the legendary Nethy night-life starts. This centres on the bar, but the cooking part provides excellent entertainment!

Sunday, Monday & Tuesday: These three days run pretty similiarly to the Saturday, but with a variety of different routes on offer at different degrees of diffuculty, and also dependent on the weather of course.

Wednesday: Once packed in the morning we bring stuff downstairs. Check for your assigned cleaning job, and do it. Check what bus your in. Get in bus with kit. Leave! Back in Manchester around 5ish.

Winter Skills
The Nethy House trip is home to the club's winter training session for members who haven't been out in the mountains during winter before. It is run to teach people new to winter hiking/mountaineering the simple techniques needed for walking in snow covered mountains. This normally takes places in Coire an t-Sneachda, where there are plenty of snow slopes to practice ice-axe arrests and walking in crampons. Some members might have already done these skills with the club in the November Scotland trip.

Cooking
One of the best times at Nethy is when you cook. This usual system is for one person to nominate themselves as head-chef, and recruit an army of helpers, to chop, mix, stir, fry, etc, and somehow produce food for 50+ people. The mayhem in the kitchen after a few beers is great, and fighting off the hungry hikers from the kitchen door asking "is it ready yet?" is a hard battle. Non-chefs can participate in the great race for the kitchen when dinnertime is announced.

All the food is bought en-route to Nethy, or from the Tesco in Aviemore, or ordered in advance from the local butcher, so the meals are normally set in place with only the order changing between trips (Curry, Chilli, Spag or the other one).