British Summer Time - Geoff Cooper

It was Sunday morning March 30th 2003, and I'd stayed in bed far longer than intended. Nothing unusual there except that I was engaging in my favourite form of escapism, camping alone in a bealach between Creise and the north ridge of Stob Gabhar (NN230485). I'd had an exhilarating walk the day before from Glencoe, having arrived on the morning bus and made my way up the snowless and rather soggy lower slopes of Meall a' Bhuiridh to the deserted ski centre where I'd stopped for breakfast. Although it was cloudy and there was a brisk wind, I had every faith in the BBC forecast of "clearer weather over the weekend". Above the ski centre buildings there were still large patches of snow and the walking was more pleasant to the summit. It's most notable feature was that the rock was a red colour which made a striking contrast with the surrounding snow. Another munro collected, I'd crossed the sharp west ridge onto the Creise plateaux and briefly walked to the north summit (collecting again) but then immediately returned south to the more interesting south top with its cliffs which still held an impressive cornice. From there I'd followed the broad south west ridge and descended to Bealach Fuar-chathaidh where I'd made camp. The weather had cleared but the wind had become quite strong and I'd had to pitch the tent with my rucksack inside to stop it from taking off! Even in my relatively sheltered position, behind some rocks, the wind had kept me awake until the small hours. Consequently, I'd overslept and still had no real desire to get out of my sleeping bag.

Several things had changed overnight, the most obvious of which was the weather. The wind had dropped and the cloud had lifted - it was going to be a very nice day. Fuelled by the sunshine and a good breakfast, I got my tent packed up and made my way up onto the broad grassy ridge leading south to Stob Gabhar. It had looked interesting on the map but now, snowbound in the morning sun, it looked magnificent. On reaching the summit, I could see the mountains of Glencoe clearly with Ben Nevis and the Mamores just visible behind as a hazy outline.

I'd have been happy to sit there for hours but I'd decided to catch the afternoon bus home. That entailed getting to Bridge of Orchy by 15:20 and it was already nearly midday. I had three and a half hours to get over Stob a Choire Odhair, down to Clashgour and out along the road to the bus stop.
The south east ridge of Stob Gabhar is narrow and rocky in places and made for an exciting descent to the bealach. The following ascent of Stob a Choire Odhair was comparatively uninteresting, although the views back to Stob Gabhar were stunning. I didn't stop for long at the top, the traverse from Stob Gabhar had taken an hour and it was going to be tough to get to Bridge of Orchy in the remaining time. My descent route took me directly down the broad south ridge to the Clashgour path from where the going was easy and I quickly covered the remaining two kilometres to the legendary club hut. It looked surprisingly small after all the stories I'd heard about it and I wished I'd had the forethought to get the key so I could get inside.

An hour and forty five minutes left; I got going again and soon found my way onto the road at the Victoria Bridge. By now I'd been in a hurry for a good few kilometres and it was starting to get irksome. I could hear a car approaching and a decision had to be made; walk for another hour on the road or hitch a lift and spend an hour sitting in the sun somewhere. It wasn't a difficult decision, I stuck out my thumb. The car slowed and stopped, there was clearly space for another passenger, excellent! And so it was, that at 14:10, I was dropped off in Bridge of Orchy. I had a little over an hour before I had to be at the bus stop so I stopped by the bridge, made some coffee and sat with my feet in the river for a while.

An hour later, I decided it was time to wander up to the bus stop to wait. 15:22 came and went and for the first ten minutes or so, I wasn't bothered. However, after half an hour on the dusty lay-by, I was starting to get a little concerned. Buses came, and each time I watched in hope, but they were all tour buses and none of them stopped. I sat on my rucksack, sent some sympathy-seeking text messages, and waited. A train passed through the station a few hundred metres away up the hill. That puzzled me; I was sure the afternoon train ran later than this. Another bus on the road put all thought of the train out of my mind. As the tenth "Lochs and Glens" bus cruised past, I realised that after an hour and a half waiting, it was decision time. I looked at my timetable; the next bus wasn't until 20:04, just over three hours away. I didn't much like the idea of staying on the roadside so I had to find something to do. I wasn't feeling tired and the weather was good so I decided to walk along the West Highland Way to Tyndrum. After about half and hour I became aware of a strange buzzing from the top of my rucksack; my phone was ringing. I raced to find it before it stopped and, after much digging, extracted it and answered the call - my mum. She'd had received my message and "just wanted to check" that I'd remembered to change my watch. After all, it was now British Summer Time. SHIT!! Suddenly it all made sense. I rang off and silently recited all the expletives I could think of - twice. I'd been in time for the bus but I'd missed it because I was sitting with my feet in a river. I'd then waited patiently for an hour before going to the bus stop. I felt very, very stupid.

I was still eight kilometres from Tyndrum and suddenly I only had an hour and forty five minutes to get there. The logical thing to do would be to go back to Bridge of Orchy. However, that felt far too much like an admission of defeat so I continued towards Tyndrum. I made good time over the next few kilometres and was starting to think I'd arrive well ahead of the bus when, rounding a bend in the path, I came to a solid wall of highland cattle. As I approached, most of them moved aside but a few decided to run ahead of me along the path. This continued for a hundred meters or so until there were two distinct groups at which point I noticed three things. Firstly; that the path was quite narrow with steep embankments on either side. Secondly; the cattle in front where predominantly calves whereas those behind were fully grown. Thirdly; that this was not a good situation! The two groups were bellowing to each other and it wouldn't be long before the adults would want to get back together with their young. There was only one route by which they could get there, and I was standing in the middle of it. Cattle don't usually bother me, but in my previous experience, they don't usually have foot long horns and the path certainly wasn't wide enough for them to pass me comfortably. As the adults starting to move along the path behind me, I quickly scrambled up the embankment cursing prolifically. As soon as I was off the path, the cattle surged forward and regrouped. Now I was back to square one; the whole herd was in front of me again and now they were spooked as well! I had to get around them somehow but as I tried to pass them they kept moving along the path below me. Slowly picking my way along above the path was wasting time I really didn't have. However, with the malicious herd of cattle keeping me off the path, I had little choice. And then, finally, a fence. Probably the only time I'll ever be glad to climb over barbed wire!

I remember very little of the final kilometres to Tyndrum except that they were hard. In the end I walked on the road because I could go faster even though the traffic made this quite unpleasant. I made it to Tyndrum with only five minutes to spare. The bus, of course, was late by twice that and when it arrived it was full. The driver told me that there would be no seats after Ardlui because some people had booked in advance. I didn't care; "Ok, I'll sit on the floor then!" I said. The driver seemed to be about to protest but in the end just muttered something unintelligible and gave me my ticket.

An hour and a half later, sitting on the floor of the bus as we came into the West End of Glasgow, I felt the pleasant mixture of tiredness and satisfaction that comes at the end of a good adventure. I was also looking forward to telling the tale and the inevitable well meant abuse that would follow! It had been a thoroughly good weekend.