The boat to Torr 'a Choit

Our group are gathering this year at Torr 'a Choit, a 3km walk in from the road end at Kinloch Hourn. Which in itself is 22 miles down a single track road. I set off early myself to enjoy the drive and hoping to find a few rare birds en-route. As can be seen from RCB the best I could come up with was a Greylag Goose, not exactly rare.

I was first to arrive at the road end car park. Time to pack my sac. Telescope, tripod, binoculars, camera, big lens, three man tent, sleeping bag, karrimat, beer, food, trainers & clothes. That's a rather heavy sac, but the extras were worth it for me and after all its only 3km.

Actually it struck me if I drove back down the road a bit and drove down the approach road to the Lodge at Kinloch Hourn I could save myself a kilometre of carrying the sac, by dropping it off there and driving back to the road end car park, but when I arrived there was Mick & Kathy and the keeper, Donald who'd given us permission to park at the Lodge. Thank You Donald.

The next task was to get one of our group, Jean to Torr 'a Choit by boat. She'd recently had a fall and broken her wrist and would have been unable to make the walk in. Mick had arranged for the use of a boat and we got it launched in the river, but given the state of the tide a fair bit of paddling and pulling on Mick's part was required to reach the open loch.

For a more comprehensive version of the events, including a wee bit of video, check out itsmosblog entry for Sunday, January 19, 2014, An old fashioned Ceilidh.

Eventually seventeen of us were gathered at Torr 'a Choit, a veritable feast was prepared and devoured, and as ever the evening was finished off with our readings and few tunes from Roberts pipes. Sublime.

My own reading was inspired by a day from last year's Norway ski trip Kvitsteindalstunet to Sauvasshytta

Deep Snow
No visibility
No landmarks
Avalanche risk
A long steep pull to the col and beyond that the hut.

We're Beyond the Arctic Crcle
There's Little chance of rescue
We're just Seven souls with maps, compasses and gps
Two pulks with food and hopefully unrequired safety gear

The guide takes over the navigation, click
Two trailbreakers are in place, click
Two pullers for the big pulk, click
One puller for the less big pulk, click
One at the back to help as required, click
The team clicks.
The ascent commences.

This is serious
This is not easy
The trailbreakers are tiring
The pulk pullers are tiring
A stop
A swap of roles
The ascent continues until finally the slope eases.

The col is gained
Then the hut is sighted
The team has worked well
The team has worked very well
No photographs record these moments, just memories
Just satisfying memories of the team that clicked.