Vicky Thornton - Another late post during the delay... Having been lucky with the weather with our Loch Lochy contribution Heather Fellbaum and I were asked by team leader Sarah Dunn if we would like to do the Ben Alder 4. We gave an immediate "yes" to this, particularly since we'd not been up them before. Who wouldn't? The train ride in with the Corrour/Loch Ossian/Munro experience combined with the relay was an opportunity not to be missed! The forecast mixed bag of weather really didn't matter.🤪🤪
We legally parked our camper at the tranquil Tulloch station for the night. Which remained tranquil even when the sleeper train arrived. The tranquility was only broken by the arrival of Sarah Dunn at 08:00 hours armed with our very own VWMR buffs which we believe have been cleverly produced by our industrious chief leaders to help remind us all of the task in hand even in the most adverse of conditions and to spur us on our way.👍🤣
Once armed with our trophies we were in no doubt that we needed to succeed.🤪🤪 I spent much of the 18 minute train journey twiddling and adjusting my newly acquired rather expensive black diamond poles🤔 while Heather played with buffs😁 and we both engaged in lively conversation with the guards😆😆.... By the time we stepped off the train and watched it chug away we had everything with us apart from my poles accidently donated to Scot Rail🤔... This was obviously meant to be as I needed both hands for map and compass!😜 Upon arrival at the deserted but atmospheric (clag and rain!) Corrour station we were greeted by the tired but still cheery Ruth Clark and Sue Barrie who had soldiered on throughout the night to reach the destination before us.
With no time to waste, and squirrel tracker securely attached, we were off. We soon ascended into the white out and on reaching the first summit while I was typing in our summit time I inadvertently phoned the entire what's app group. This seemed to cause some hilarity (no change there) so feeling a bit of a chump (sadly not much change there either) we carried on our merry way singing our VWMR song our substitute version for YMCA... which I wanted to record but I was wisely advised that wasn't my best idea.🤣
Within no time we seemed to be heading towards Ben Alder and I had seen nothing other than heather, grass and Heather. 😁 On reaching this third fabulous top the mist gradually dispersed and we were treated to all round views. Soon after this the 🌞 came out, however the wind got up somewhat (gusting 50+) and we got battered around on our swift descent from the final top to our transition at Culra Lodge. Here we were greeted by Janine Hensman and Hazel Dean who had biked the 16k in from Dalwhinny to meet us. They were armed with sausage rolls and a hot flask of coffee and I so eager to reach them that I managed to slip and fall flat in the fast flowing river. Fortunately Heather, still with poles, kindly thrust one in my direction which meant both our phones, which were in my top pockets, were saved from certain submersion.👍🤪 The four of us had a short catch-up chat in the bothy and we waved Janine and Hazel off on their merry way. The wind proved handy as I was soon blow dried on Janine's rather out sized bike on the route down to Dalwhinny with it's famous distillery which we thought we better leave for another occasion!😜😜
There is no charge for reading this account, but please consider donating to Free to Run, the charity that the ladies are running for.