Please don’t think that we never took any time away from
mountain rescue. A couple of times a
year we would go away on holiday. I mean
the whole team would go. We would move
to another area for four weeks and the team responsible for that area would, come
into North Wales, and cover our area.
This long break would be called the August Grant. We would claim to be on exercise for two
weeks and everyone on the team would take two weeks annual leave, giving us the
four week total. One year we went to the
Isle of Skye.
This is a long time before the bridge was constructed
connecting the island Of Skye to the mainland.
It was quite an exciting time for me to actually be at the Kyle of Loch
Alsh and then, via the old ferry, get on to the Island. For this was a spot referred to in song, and
literature, and history, that would remain forever a milestone in your
mind. We had to be careful as the vicar on
the Island was a real bible thumper and would come down heavy on any wrong
doing or lewd behaviour. Luckily we
stayed at an old bothy so there was no need for tents. The weather was glorious and we were greeted,
and kept company, by the biggest swarm of midges I have ever seen.
As you can imagine this was a fantastic exercise because only
a few members of the team would have been there before, so for most of us it
was back to basics, with the old maps and compasses. The most important activity we each had to
successfully undertake was to complete the Cullen Ridge in one day. This is one of the goals many mountaineers
would hope to achieve.
The Cuillin Ridge is only about seven miles long and
you are expected to complete the whole ridge in about eighteen hours. It’s a mixture of scrambling and climbing
which is why we had to pre-position ourselves up on the ridge ready for the off,
at dawn. There are many established
goals for mountaineers and a traverse of the Cuillin Ridge is regarded as the
finest mountaineering experience available in the UK placing the Cuillin Ridge
close to the top.
There are many traditional objectives and records which
mountaineers set out to complete, equal or break. The most popular would have to be the Munro’s. Around the nineteen hundreds there was a
fellow called Sir Hugh Munro. He
recorded all peaks in Scotland above three thousand feet. He compiled all this information into one
guide book and the activity, should you attempt to conquer every mountain in
his guide, is known as Munro bagging.
Many climbers will use the book almost like a train spotter, although
without the anorak and thermos. So many
people would be engaged in completing, or bagging, the Munro’s, we would refuse
to touch any trigonometrical point, marking the individual Munro, and instead
say that we were not doing the Munro’s, we would still tick it of in the guide
book though.
I think it’s a great way for people to systematically enjoy
the Scottish mountains and I would say the same about Wainwright and his guide
to the mountains of the Lake District.
We however were not collecting points or ticking off peaks. We were going to test ourselves and our
skills over an established and highly documented route. This meant that we had to climb up on to the
ridge the evening before, spend the night on the ridge and then set off at
first light, if we were going to be able to complete the whole ridge in one
day. Thankfully we found that the ridge
was a midge free zone and it was quite enjoyable getting such a good view of
the Island. The following day was not
going to allow us many opportunities to enjoy the scenery and the route was
horrendous and very much at the white knuckle end of dangerous.
That evening we began to cook our meal. John Boy declared himself duty cook. He prepared a small area and planned out the
whole menu for that evening’s meal and for breakfast the following morning. I suppose this is where the five P’s came
into play. Prior, planning, prevents,
piss, poor, performance. Sorry, the six
P’s. Like any decent mountain rescue man,
John Boy, prepared everything and then slipped, sending all the food for that evening’s
meal, plus all the food for the following morning’s breakfast, into the valley
below.
We did have ropes but there are no rivers up on the Cuillin Ridge,
so we knew, as did John Boy, that he would have to wait unit we returned to sea
level before he would sleep with the fishes.
We did have scran with us. Each
of us would have had two or three chocolate bars and some fruit in our bags but
we would have calculated what we might have wanted for the exercise and taken
no more, for the last thing you want on a long hard trek is extra weight.
My memory of the Cuillin Ridge is that it was a horrendous
ordeal. From the moment we set off we
knew that we were under pressure, to not just complete the route within a
certain time, but to be faster than any other unit that would attempt it. A
fierce pace had to be maintained and the going was extremely tough. You seemed to move forward for ten yards then
scramble down twenty, then climb up twenty, then move forward. There was no break where you could stretch your
legs, it was up and down the whole way.
Very, very, tiring.
We managed to complete it and believe it or not didn’t go for
a beer to celebrate, instead we were content to pull up a sandbag, get a mug of
tea, sit around and tell a few stories, oh yeah, and tie John Boy up and thrown
him in the river.
I do remember one evening we all piled into a three ton truck
and headed off for a local hostelry. I
knew that it was my turn to be designated driver. Mid-way through the evening, as I watched the
chaps down beer after beer, while I sipped my glass of tap water, Jack called
Chippy Prince and myself over to a corner.
“Right you two,” he said, smiling and repeatedly sipping his
beer, showing that perhaps he had taken the first steps on the route to being a
little the worse for wear. “I want you
two to go to the bar and get the barman into a session, that way we can get the
bar to stay open longer.”
“But!” I said
“No but’s,” said Jack, rummaging through his head for his
team leader persona. “Barman, session,
now, you two!”
Chippy and myself did go to the bar and we discovered that the
barman was drinking Southern Comfort.
Doubles. After half a dozen of
these, each, the barman asked if we were trying to get him drunk so that he would
keep the bar open longer. Of course as
we three were now the bestest of friends, ever, in the world, we admitted that we
had been sent on a secret mission. The barman
laughed and explained that if we had wanted the bar to stay open longer all we had
to do was ask.
That didn’t really help the situation as Jack wanted to know
who the duty driver was and the troops pointed to the drunken Irishman lying on
the floor, next to Chippy Prince. Luckily
there were one or two chaps on the team who didn’t over indulge and the team
were able to be taken back to base camp that evening, or should I say, morning.
As for Skye it is a most beautiful place, from the shore line
to the top of the Cuillin Ridge. If you
ever get a chance go there, you’ll love it, sure even the water is lovely and
cool. John Boy can vouch for that, and believe
it or not, so can I.
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