18 - MEALL GHAORDAIDH
From Meall Ghaordaidh. M nan Tarmachan is above trig pt, Lawers range to the left. Photo tms.nickbramhall.com
3.5 miles 870 metres
Start Friday 09.18
Meall Ghaordaidh 10.04
Finish 10.19
Squares: green - start, red - finish. Circles summits: green - this leg. Map Colin Matheson
Time: Estimated 1.00 Actual 1.01
Steve arrived and and I drove the car up to the dam where a couple had just spent the night and had been intrigued at the car's initial arrival and Mark's sudden departure white stick in hand. They gave the charity a donation and me two mugs of tea whilst we watched Mark reach the top and set off down. Soon he arrived and drove me fast but very sensibly down the road.
Not in the least bit pushy he went to overtake a pedestrianly slow landrover on the main road, and pulled back as the landrover swung across the road. On the next good straight I suggested that Mark should toot to warn them. As we went alongside the other driver deliberately moved across. Mark reckoned that there was less than an inch between him and the wall, and I that there was less than an inch between vehicles. Even had Mark driven assertively, such behaviour is inexcusable.
The strong cold wind made me opt for a helly hansen rather than a tee-shirt, but I was soon sweating so hard that I took it off. I had allocated the time for this leg to be a bit faster than Alwyn's 1990 time in the opposite direction, but realised how hard this was going to be as my 2 mile steady, marginally runnable climb was his super fast descent route. His steep climb would be my craggy descent, and to top it all his start was 500ft higher than mine. In fact it was 10 minutes before I reached the height of the finish.
I enjoyed the climb but the 42 minute summit schedule beep went off with some way still to go. So once over the top I shot off down the fast north ridge. In four minutes I was half the distance down, but nowhere near half the height. I was now into the crags and boulders. Other than at one big cliff I got down without having to backtrack, and shot down across the lower slopes only a minute down on schedule.
A great feeling of well-being in my first good weather of the trip.The one frustration was seeing Ross take the baton off in the van at a pace that I was sure I could beat on foot! Having put that much effort into every minute of my run that is just irrationally irksome.
Peaks done 109 Hours elapsed 123 Peaks to do 168
This was the only occasion that the baton was taken in the van which was a back up plan as we knew that the car might not get round from my start via the mothership at Ben Lawers for Mark to get out and Craig to take over in time. In fact Craig arrived about a minute after Ross had meandered out of sight.
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