Glencoe2007

English May Bank Holiday 2007 A story of the Hoff, some mineral water and a uni called Loughborough.

It was 4:45pm. The minibus was positioned in the best get-away location yet – just off the slip road for the A 57(M), just outside the institution formally known as UMIST. The “late minibus team” were ready for action. I threw in my bags and we were off, speeding up* the motorway to the ‘Coe. Pausing only for chips at Lockerbie, before we knew it we were flying up the A82 up Glencoe, peering out the windows at the steep sided hills. After a beer or 2 at the campsite most of us fell into bed pretty early for a weekend trip; it had been a long day. Well that and some miserable Polish campsite worker poured water on the campfire, and so it was deemed bed time.

Dinnertime Buttress is a scramble that has been on the wish list of routes for years. Somehow I’d never done it, despite many trips to Glencoe as a wee undergrad during my Glasgow days – but then maybe leading hungover freshers along the Aonach Eagach in the wet or up Curved Ridge in the wind just appealed more? So awaking to decent weather on the Saturday morning, we decided to do it. It isn’t the hardest of routes, but you do go straight up from the valley onto an outlying top of Bidean which is rather cool.

After doing every top feasible on the Bidean Massiv we came down to Glencoe, pausing only for water and head-dunking-in-stream stops. Back at the campsite it started raining. And the Ben Nevis possy were not back. Other people did the Ring of Steall and JP and Chris Banks did some “entertaining” climbing up some choss-tastic VDiff somewhere. It kept raining. We heard from the Ben Nevis possy that all was good, they were just slow. We had tea, we went to the pub. It was still raining. We met the group of students from Loughborough University Hiking Club; apparently they’d been there last year. This made Iain’s weekend –Lufbra (as they like to call themselves) according to Iain were a good laugh, and so it seemed.

On Sunday it rained and some of us went a walk to the Blackwater Reservoir. The others did things like go up Buchaille Etive Beag. It was wet enough for cooking to take place in the minibus which worked well, and created the ultimate in minibus steam rooms. (But if anyone from UMSU reads this you misread it and we cooked in the p*ssing rain, and ate soggy pasta as our damp, white bodies shivered with hypothermia whilst being eaten by midgies. In’t [sic] camping in late spring in Glencoe pleasant?). A wide variety of meals were made from pasta to curry to, erm, the Hoff’s bottle of red wine. He said he’d eaten in Nevis Sport in Fort William and was not hungry. Iain and Jon L had a trance party in the other bus, whilst waxing lyrical about Loughborough (again!) and communication to them took place using “steam messaging” (i.e. writing in the steamed up windows of the “kitchen bus”).

We went to the pub. We had cake and custard in the pub. Yummy! Iain and Jon L were still obsessed with the Loughborough uni group and so didn’t come to the pub but went to their hut. In the Clachaig all was good, with a band playing and the beer flowing well. Somehow we met Loughborough (who had left Iain and Jon L looking after their campfire) and partied with them. We were invited back to their hut (or did we invite ourselves? Who cares, we ended back at their hut anyway, via the campsite for alcohol and mineral water** supplies) to continue the party we met up with Iain and Jon L and the enormous campfire. Alas it started raining again, so we went into the hut. Speeches were made, mineral water drunk (by chairmen of both clubs) and then the Hoff went awol. We assumed he had just gone back to his tent. On leaving the hut and arriving back at the campsite we duly unzipped his tent, just to check he was there and not choking in a pool of his vomit. Chairman Hoff was not there. Bugger. It was one of those moments where you go from totally pissed to completely sober in 5 seconds flat. Search parties were organised, phones turned on and it continued to rain. The Hoff was found a short time later, the wrong side of a barbed wire fence.

The next morning it was still raining. Some of us went to play at Steall in Glen Nevis on the bridge. Some went straight home. Despite the wet weather, it had been a cracking weekend – the day on the hill on the Saturday and the Sunday night in the pub/hut had totally made it a weekend to remember.

'* Not literally speeding of course. That would incur a stern look from the weekend secretary.

'** Mineral water = Lidl’s finest vodka, left over from vodka and doughnuts in Freshers’ week.