The 7th Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour came to Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday 5th March, with their Blue programme of 7 films showing at 2.30pm and their Red programme of 6 films at 7.30pm. I chose to turn up on ‘spec’ (thus saving over £3 on booking fees) for the afternoon programme as I’d already seen the main climbing film in the evening set at “Reel Rock 10” at the Crescent Theatre last September. 370 films entered the 9 day Canadian Festival last November and the be... Read full article

Always very popular on the meet calendar and 2016 was no different, with 51 members booked in at the Ben Nevis Hotel Fort William. I think this is very popular with members for being reasonably priced, the services the hotel has to offer, and the great quality of food.

If no one has previously been on this week, I would strongly recommend that you give it a go based on the qualities mentioned above. As always thanks should be given to Jonathon Howells for organising and liaising with ... Read full article

We had an RAF managed bunkhouse booked just south of Aviemore. A place called Feshiebridge Lodge. The intention was to spend four days climbing as many routes as possible in Coire an t-Sneachda. We travelled up in three small groups on Tuesday 8th and by early evening we were all settled in the lodge poring over guidebooks, maps, weather and avalanche reports (and a couple of beers !) and generally getting all enthusiastic about the coming few days. The previous weeks weather had been gr... Read full article

The figures for the 2015 Coach Meets reported below are different to any previous year because they are the summary of only 11 meets. The reason for this is that, for the first time in living memory, one of the coach meets (you guessed it......August!) had to be cancelled due to lack of bookings. In addition I lost the data for the very successful Mitch’s Meet in January at the Peckforton Hills due to a motherboard failure.

120 different people used the coach, a similar number... Read full article

Following a request from the Editor, asking if I’d be able to write a version of “Stranded at the Hut” or if I knew anyone who could, I’ve been coerced into putting fingers to the keyboard again because there are obviously people out there who have forgotten that I triggered the whole thing off (I think) with “If I Could Only Keep 5 Books” published in the January 2014 Newsletter! To save you delving through your precious collection of old Newsletters (you surely don’t throw t... Read full article

Always a favourite weekend by many WBMC members, hence the reason that this weekend becomes booked up very quickly. Lagangarbh hut is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and has been occupied and maintained by the Scottish Mountaineering Council since 1946. It was recently refurbished in 1994.

The hut is situated north of Buachaille Etive Mor near the River Coupall, the hut was originally a crofting home typically with a central entrance hall and stairs ahead, two rooms up and ... Read full article

At 2pm on 8th Feb I picked up Nick Piotrowski - not sure if it was the ‘man’ or the ‘fiction’ (you'll have to ask him) - in Harbourne and 7 hours later we were having a drink in The Crianlarich Hotel, opposite the community parking area by the A82, where we’d decided to spend our first night in the Edwards’ motorhome.

Tuesday dawned much less windy than it had been at the weekend so it was a short drive south to Keilator Farm where a new hydro road gave relatively easy ... Read full article