Saturday 4 June 2022

Sat 4th June finally arrived where had made plans to help the Archie Foundation reach their goal of summiting all 130 Archie’s (Mountains over 1,000m with 100m drop all round) in one day. We had ended up with seven, with both the Ben Alder group (Paul and Dave, sadly not Katrina as planned) agreeing to take in Beinn Eibhinn, and the Knoydart trio (Iain, Andrew and Callum) being asked to cover Sgurr Mor as well.

Fears of rain and wind were unfounded and instead blue skies and light winds!

That brought its own challenges with sun, heat and taking enough water for a long day up high.

Mark set off early evening Friday for a high camp near Drumochter, enjoying the evening wildlife and taking in the sunset and sunrise before topping out on Beinn Udlamain Saturday morning – meeting Paul and Karen on their way up, just to make doubly sure we had that one ticked!

Richard and Hedda made their way up Glas Maol – her first Munro and Archie!

Dave and Paul H cycled their way into Culra from Dalwhinnie to camp and set off early Sat morn for Beinn Bheoil and Ben Alder, Dave eventually pushing on to complete all three of our allocated Archie’s, plus a further 3 Munro’s / 2 Archies clocking up nearly 27km and 2,000m of ascent.

Finally the team for Knoydart arrived at the A’Chuil bothy late Friday night, and set off for Sgurr na Ciche early, reaching the top just after 10am. Iain didn’t reach the final Archie until 3pm with Paul Fettes from the organising team nervously asking if we had made it! Finally getting back to the bothy after 33km and 11.5 hrs it was a memorable and tough day in wild country.

Thanks to all our efforts, we have raised around £400, contributing to a total of over £35,000 raised for the Charity.

A great event to be part of, and a very rewarding weekend.

• Report by Iain