The Saturday before Christmas 1989 was Frank Cation's Auchtermuchty forest race. Big Bobby (Melville) had had a good run and was jumping about like a dog with two tails shouting that he wanted a good hill run tomorrow. Everyone except myself must have heard the weather forecast as he could get no one interested and that's when he got his shackles on me - I thought it was a cracking idea. As my car was hospitalised Bobby picked me up at 7 a.m. in Newburgh and we left in a howling gale and torrential rain.

Up through Crieff and Comrie and along the south side of Loch Earn to Ardvorlich House where we parked by the lochside. The plan was to do Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Chroin, a nice round trip of about 10 miles but with this kind of weather we decided just to go up and have a look. The time was 8.30 a.m. and it was still quite dark so Bobby sat and talked and I sat and slept, only to be awakened from the realms of slumber to the roaring of the statement that since we hid come all this way, he "wis gawn and wis a comin' or wis a gawn to sleep here all day."  I just hope he doesn't talk like that down south or the natives will never understand him
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We got underway, climbed up past the farm, through the gate and onto the hill on the land-rover track, a quarter of a mile and the water was running down our backs and our shoes were filling up quick. This didn't really matter as the first burn we crossed took us up to our knees, so once you are soaked you can get no wetter. The higher we climbed the colder it was and the thicker the cloud got. We could see about 50 yards then we hit the snow line and everything looked the same. To start with it was wet and slushy and chilled the feet and ankles to the marrow. Once we were on the broad ridge before the last to the summit there was another change as the wind had blown all the snow off. Then change again on the last steep section as it had a covering of snow with a glaze of frozen rain, which left it pretty treacherous. At this stage we were sheltered from the freezing west wind but it was a different story on the summit ridge. The ridge has a trig point at one end with a cairn 25 yards over at the other. It was quite a laugh seeing Bobby stumble along trying his hardest to stay on while the wind was doing its best to blow him off. I have never thought Vorlich to be a dangerous summit but that particular day it most certainly was.

Once off the summit we were sheltered again but with the icy conditions Bobby slipped and swore and I slipped and giggled at the oaths and curses coming from him. We soon got down below the snow line and it was a straight forward run down the path with Bobby singing every song he knew and what he didn't know I'm sure he just made up. When we arrived back at the car the rain was so heavy we had to change inside which was not at all easy for two soaking lumps.

Soon we were into the sandwiches and roasting hot coffee when a lonely walker came along and told us he was going up Vorlich, we laughed and told him, rather him than us. For our part we had never seen a soul all day, which on a Scottish mountain these days is a rare thing.

Stuc a Chroin shall have to wait another day and I do hope it will be a bit drier and less windy but the again under these conditions it usually means less solitude.

Tom Ross.