The comp started later than expected with Iain the manager waffling on about rules and safety, blah blah, and I impatiently watched the clock ticking on. Finally though! RB rushed through the 1st easier problems as per usual and got as far as no9 (out of 20) before coming unstuck at the Dyno problem (urgh!) Dyno problem was set as no9 this year instead of the usual no 10 and RB's fingers were brushing the bottom of the hold, which is an improvement on her usual dyno's!
Time was pushing on and I was just about to drag her off to her Dad's as I'd planned to leave at 8 and it was now 8.15, but she wanted to try one more problem that she'd tried earlier which involved having to get established on a big round blob with out using any foot holds. Determination saw her through and up she got, 2nd try, and much tension later managed the final stretch over to the finishing hold, was sure she was coming off at one point, but she held it together really well! And she managed to get 2nd place in the Junior Females section, well done wee girl!
That was it, off to her Dad's, me quickly nipping into my Mum's for some new CD's she'd ordered for me, Laura Marling's 'Alas I cannot Swim,' and Rodrigo y Gabriella. Both I'd heard from John's MP3 player/Ipod thingymabober on the way down to Northumbria the other week.
2hrs later and I'm pulling up in BofG.
Saturday, Andy and I had a lazy morning and then drove across to Cummingston as the Morray coast looked driest. There were a couple of showers and the rock was a little greasy but still ok to climb. Not for me though, tried a Severe on 2nd but arm just too sore to like it. Did a Diff, and my arm wasn't too fussed about that one, but just belayed Andy on a few routes nonetheless and urged him to climb each route 3x! So that was 3x VS, 3x HVS and 3x E2's, lol!
A cozy evening of wine and Belgian Choccies and many discussions of routes, hills, cliffs, followed by decisions about what to do on Sunday. I'd brought up all my winter climbing stuff in the hope of climbing but we decided that with all the rain in the hills that day, and because it wasn't due to snow till later on that even though something might be climbable it would be pretty minging. So, we thought about a hill walk. Andy only has 30 munros to do for his 4th round but they were all pretty far for a day trip so we eventually decided on Bynack More which I hadn't done but which he'd done a billion times! But was happy to do again.
We left the car (in rain) around 9.30 but the shower soon passed and we were well on our way past the Green Loch and turning off before Ryvoan Bothy to head up the Lairig an Laoigh, cutting off the path to head across and up to Bynack More. There was sleet lower down, turning to snow at around 800m and the wind was more ferocious than forecast. We had bumped into a couple making there way to the Shelterstone for the night and didn't envy them, they looked like they were struggling with their heavy sacks a little in the strong wind. It had been forecast for 30mph with gusts of 50, but was more like gusts of 60mph, and we decided to head off the path and around the East side of the North ridge to avoid the gusts. We had overtaken a group of walkers on the path up to the ridge and decided that if we still beat them onto the summit after traipsing up steep heather then we'd made the right choice and if they beat us then we should have stuck to the path. Of course, we were faster and arrived first. The wind was gusting and blowing spindrift into our faces, rather nippy and it was hard getting summit photos!
We didn't hang about for long and passed the group on the way down, some of whom looked rather miserable! We sheltered in a wee chimney on one of the wee tors down from the ridge and ate our sarnie's. I felt quite content and cozy tucked up in the granite chimney, apart from boshing my elbow on the rock when I first got in! But it was time to head down and the walk down seemed to take longer than the walk up! And did it not start pouring with horrid frosty rain when we were just 5mins from the car and couldn't be bothered to stop and put on waterproofs again!
Munro no 86 done, 100 here we come.
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