>>We walked in to the Ben Alder bothy
>>
...one of the memorable facets of my visit is that we didn't.....
Late November some 40 years ago in the days when some of us used to bale-out after work on Friday for a long weekend in the Highlands (fuel must have been somewhat cheaper, and, to quote Bobby, mojo a bit stronger).
Kipped in a mate's car in the bitter cold on the side of the A9, then next morning picked up the key to the estate gate from the Factor's wife in Dalwhinnie (when we knocked on the door, she dropped it out of an upstairs window ""Ye'll be wanting this!").
Drove down just short of Ben Alder Lodge and parked up off the track, only to be immediately approached by the factor. When he ascertained we were heading for the bothy, he replied "we're stalking (hinds) on the approach today". We offered to go to the other bothy, at Blackburn of Pattack, but the same applied there.
"Tell you what", he said, "if you're ready, I'll take you down the Loch with the stalking party in the boat leaving now, and drop you off".
Well, we weren't really ready (though the gear was packed in rucksacks, the food was in boxes in the car boot) but given the offer, we very rapidly were. An awful lot of much heavier provisions went on top, along with a separate box - considerably more than we would have carried in and we set off in the boat with the factor and the owner's son and stalking partner. The latter were dropped off part-way down the Loch, and we got a taxi-ride almost to the door of Ben Alder Cottage.
The factor broke his hip-flask out and shared some single malt, and, having determined when we planned to walk out, re-arranged his future stalking to suit, then disappeared in the boat. Absolutely top bloke.
We had three nights knocking off all the local Munros. Green at ground level, and deep, deep snow from about 1500 feet. Remarkably, as it's in the middle of a 3000 acre plateau, we found the trig point on the top of Ben Alder in a white-out. My mate used it as an example of splendid map and compass work - given even a degree out on the compass bearing would have meant we wouldn't have had any visibility of it, I put it down to luck.
On the morning we left, we saw the factor on the loch from the "path". Given what we'd taken in, and now had to pack out*, we were like walking Christmas trees, but he was amazed at the pace we were making (I was fit, once).
*a lone walker turned up on the last night, and we fed him from our ample provisions, and then left some with him to avoid the load.
Happy days!
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