Page 8 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

OCdt Lemonaris with the view from Allt Scheicheachan bothy in the background
Lodge. As it was a nice even-
ing we decided to have a BBQ
that night with the lodge facilities
before coming in for some more
card games. When we arrived,
the Lodge warden told us that the
lodge gets badgers every night
and that there was a big bag of peanuts in the cupboard to put out for them.
We awoke the next morning and started mak- ing breakfast when someone realised that the badgers hadn’t eaten the peanuts, but during breakfast the OCdts were treated to a visit from the rare red squirrel. Due to vehicle problems only five of the OCdts could walk because of the instructor ratios. However, determined to make the most of a sunny day in Scotland, some OCdts took a walk of the local area in Aviemore, allowing them to practice micro navigation.
With the replacement vehicle we were able to get out and bag some more Munros! We started early from the Lodge and drove to Sporran Cot-
OCdts walking off the rocky summit of Beinn Dearg
Early in the morning on the 14th April, 10 OCdts from Gaza Company began their journey of a week’s climbing out in Calpe,
Spain. This went smoothly apart from OCdt Murphy, who managed to accidentally leave his phone on the bus, though we were convinced that was his excuse to not call his wife for a week. Our villa turned out (thankfully) to look exactly like the pictures on the website, with a pool and ten-
nis courts which helped provide entertainment on the evenings we spent in.
Both of our instructors, OCdt Brandy and OCdt Langley, came from within the Academy, who were put up to the challenge of a group con- sisting almost exclusively of novice climbers. This showed very true on the first few days on the wall as disco legs began making very quick
There were some patches of snow on the way up...
Exercise CALPE CLIMBER and Exercise SCORCHED SCRAMBLER
tages. We set off by crossing the rail tracks and headed up the path towards the summit of Gael Charn (917m), where we were met with several demoralising false summits. There were some patches of snow on the way up but the summits were
snow free. We reached the summit of Gael Charn where we were met with gale force winds so the stone wind breakers were a welcome sight. After a quick snack we set off again into the saddle before heading towards the plateau summit of Pharmacodynamic. After refuelling at the sum- mit, we headed down the spur to the bottom of the valley back towards the car, where we had to cross a river to get back on the track.
On the final day, due to a late check out, we weren’t able to bag any more Munros so we headed to Aberlour to practice some more micro nav before heading back to Glasgow to return to RMAS. Thanks to the Sandhurst Trust for provid- ing funding for the exercise!
6 SANDHURST