Highlander Mountain Marathon 2015

This year's Highlander Mountain Marathon was held in the Assynt area - a stunningly scenic wilderness of bog and rock on the west coast, north of Ullapool. This is the land of Ben More Assynt, Suilven, Canisp, Quinaig, Stac Pollaidh for the mountain aficionado...

Northern corrie of Ben More Assynt - day1

Despite the warm spring sunshine and above average temperatures of last week, the forecast was for snow...

Team Moorfoot Eddie/Kenny (A class)

Day1
Snow down to road level on way to start and thermometer dropping - intermittent sleet and hail - full winter kit off and on between the squalls - sunshine one minute, blast of rather large hailstones the next, incredible spindrift higher up...

A tough day on the hill - was hating bog and peat hags until we came across endless large boulder fields of jagged rocks  (come back peat hags, all is forgiven..) - not much running happening...
Eddie's normal 'diesel-like engine' was misfiring a bit..
Some time made up crossing some higher snow fields in the higher corries, then more jagged stuff and the inevitable bog and peat hags again.

But, no major navigation errors - day1 completed in 9.5 hours (ouch!) - just over 30Km and 1600m climbing
Back to base camp, somewhat chilled to the bone, for three rounds of pasta, a beer and then into the tent, where I luxuriated in my combo of  slightly heaver than the average sleeping bag and half kilo (I weighed it!) of Thermarest sleeping mat...the slightly more weight conscious competitor lying shivering but smug in the knowledge that their sleeping paraphernalia was 300g lighter...

Canisp - day2

Day2
More snow on the hills overnight, but the 'forecast' meant to be better...
Up at 0530 to use the heated marquee to dry out a few items ahead of another long day.

0700 start - river crossing (shin deep), before we had even picked up our course map and course details...
Snow line entered after about ten minutes (ie. beyond the first bog) and then it went all dark, and pretty much for the rest of the day it snowed - not as windy as day1, but incessant, big, wet sleety flakes...and really cold...

Organiser Alex Keith keeping warm out on course in his bivvy bag

Five and a half hours in, just after summiting the saddle of Suilven (650m) in several inches of snow, we made the decision to 'retire' at the next control point - realizing that we were probably not up for a ten hourer....
As it was, it was still about 5 miles back to the finish, and the best bogs kept for the home run - we were back in around 8 hours after starting. Not sure of the distance, but didn't feel like much less than day1 !

An epic weekend - winners of A class were under 11 hours over the two days - amazing...
Only eight of nineteen completed the A-class course - many other teams retired on day2 also.

Slight delays on the road home (stuck behind snow ploughs on the A9) but home in the day light.

Really tough terrain, but great location and superb organisation - looking forward to 2016....