3 Apr 2008 - HF Centenary Munro Programme
The story so far….
With possibly one of the worst summers on record in 2007, it may not have been an ideal start to the ten-year programme for the Club to aim to climb all the Munros in time for the celebration of its centenary in 2017. Nevertheless, stalwart souls have been braving the wind, rain, sleet, snow blizzards and, very occasionally, sunshine to notch up another peak bagged in the progress towards the target.
From my own experience, some of the highlights so far were an absolutely glorious day way back last April when Alistair Wilson led an ‘A’ party on Ben More and Stob Binnein – so good was the weather that we were talking about going away and camping (this was before the rains came!), - a wintry climb on Cruach Ardrain by way of its northeast ridge and a mega-day when a whole army was led across the Aonach Eagach ridge by Sheryl Harvey. Hopefully, by now, club members have received their summer programme and, apart from the Munros to be climbed in the two club weekends at Ratagan and Glen Nevis, we will have managed to notch up 88 of the 284 Munros to be climbed. Another 12 Munros in the immediate area to Glasgow are still to be climbed, so we are well on our way to achieving the hoped-for goal.
On Wednesday evening, a sub-committee met to discuss how the challenge of reaching the more distant Munros can be met since, clearly, once we have the accessible mountains climbed, it will become increasingly difficult to keep up the momentum. After discussion about the possibilities of more club weekends away, we decided on a more ad hoc approach in preference to any ‘grand plan’. So far, the ideas are to cover the winter 2008-09 programme and will include one weekend either before or after Christmas at the Cluanie Inn or the Onich bunkhouse, coupled with a mid-week trip to Newtownmore with the Glen Feshie hills as the target. We are also hoping to make Drumochter the location for the April special bus next year, with the intention of climbing the 7 Munros on either side of the Pass in a number of walks.
Looking to the future, the possible locations for next year’s Club weekends in May and September are Torridon and Braemar. As they say, watch this space….
In the meantime, it would be great to use the web-site as a discussion point for our own experiences of this challenge and for others to throw in ideas about how we go about this. As the mastermind (?!?!?!) behind the original idea, can I ask the leaders and photographers who have been conscientiously recording our summit groups to send Jim Cassidy the photographs for the Centenary record?
Over to you……