Lochearnhead Newsletter Week 2 Issue 12

Station Times

50 years of Lochearnhead Edition 22th August 2012 - Issue 11

Higher and Higher Weather The West Highlands Blustery highest summits.

Showers. Cloud lifting above most tops.

How Windy?

West backing southwesterly 20mph, perhaps 25 to 30mph on highest summits in Lochaber for a few hours.

How Wet? Showers, mainly western mountains in morning, before mostly transferring well inland in afternoon. Risk light rain commencing toward dusk toward south.

Cloud on the hills?

Cloud widely across western and southern hills in morning when the base likely between 450 and later 700m. By afternoon, most cloud above 850 with breaks to 1050m. Well inland, most cloud above 900m by late morning, and then often above summits.

Sunshine - Air clarity?

Patchy sun will come through. High level cloud may later obscure the sun. Visibility generally good, but in morning toward west, extensively foggy across the hills.

Patrol A and B headed off climbing today. Scrambling off the minibus we were told that we had a two mile hike to the face but it actually turned out that it was only 100 metres away.

After a couple of minutes of testing bouldering we headed to the face. The whole day was spent climbing the different lines up the face and enjoyed blazing sun as well as rain. Some of the routes were tricky but we seemed to manage.

After the climbing we headed off to Crieff Tourist Centre to buy some fudge and other touristy stuff for the family back home and then drove back along the loch to reach the station again. A good day with fortunately good weather.

Sailing is Tillerific We arrived at the jetty to the sound of silence a.k.a no rescue boat (still sitting on the shore.) after an hour of waiting the powerboat finally roared into life and sped towards us some time later we rigged our boats and started sailing. The boat in which contained bendon adam and liz got off to a wobbly start. After lunch it was plain sailing until adam parked his boat nicely in a tree later towed back to the jetty. Unfortunately louise fell into the water right at the last hurdle.

How Cold? o

8 C (at 900m) o 16 C (at Station)

A wee dip in the loch The catering team had a spare 5 minutes and decided to peel 36kgs of carrots

Today Mila, Rachel, Lucy, Fabio and Michael did the first set of kayaking in the morning. It was clear from the start Mila was the Expert we placed our noses on the end of our boats in the water while holding onto each other’s boats so we didn’t fall in! Mila almost did it with no one holding on to hear kayaking! when our instructor matt took use through the long reeds, WE SAW A BABY OWL, he was sleeping in the reeds!

Page 2

A two day Hike Today we came back from our two day hike; we started our hike by checking all of our bags for the equipment such as trangia, tents, food, gas and rucksack. When we got there we put up our tents, then we had our tents, then we had our food from trangias. After that we washed up then we went to bed.

In the morning we had breakfast, it was Weetabix with hot chocolate and a mars bars. Then we washed up, after that we went to put the tents down. After that we walked down. When we got to the bottom we had to wait for the minibus. In the end it was fun hiking.

Adam Taplin Goodie was most upset when he realised that he’d missed the opportunity to leave his tent door open in the pouring rain meaning his tent was all dry inside unlike FI-FI’s.

The Highland Donkey While out on their Hike Patrols A & B saw a very rare Highland Animal.

This is a Quick guide on how to find a Highland Donkey.

Highland Donkeys are a breed not often seen in the wild and unlike other highland animals (such as the Highland Goat, the Highland Sheep and the Highland Cow) they are not very good at travelling the Mountains and so regularly fall over.

To our knowledge there is only one Highland Donkey still alive today and it is usually found once every three years in and around the mountains and lochs near the Lochearnhead scout station.

Interesting facts about the highland Donkey:  They are normally found with their behinds in the air as they often fall over while climbing up mountains, down mountains, through bog or even on flat ground!  The only known Highland Donkey in existence is best identified by its incredibly distinctive laugh which gave rise (in part) to its name.  This female is also known to be singing loudly and badly wherever you see her; Often its warble can be heard several valleys away.

The Highland Donley is rarely seen in Scotland see if you can locate this rare highland Treasure.

We all know what a cracking job the catering team are doing: the cakes, the wonderful evening meals, and the midnight snacks for the leaders.

Mug shot of the day.

But why were some of the meat pies served upside down yesterday? Was this because some had over-done lids?

Investigative journalism means we should ask these questions, not least because we are led to believe that one the catering team is prone to disguising any burnt bits when cooking at home.

And this is all before she reaches for the rubber gloves to wash up.

N.B. Not written by the editor

Mugsey has another accident !!!!!

It's okay no scouts were involved