Day 1

 After an unbelievably early start yours truly, Mrs Bear and 11 "volunteers" we were almost at our destination, Mallaig which is some 50 miles north of Fort William and the end of the road. Literally. So after a brief shout fest the Gypsy Rover is loaded with as much stuff as 12 people and one dog think they will need to survive in the last great wilderness in the UK

 and casts off

 and leaves us

 to make our own way to base camp at Ardentigh. This involved a jolly jaunt along Loch Morar, one of the deepest fresh water expanses of water at over 300 metres deep used by the US navy in WW2 to test deep sea diving gear.

 In beautiful weather (just as well as we were 3 hours behind schedule) we made good progress

climbed over the headland along kidney loch side where the view opened out to reveal Loch Nevis and the target mountain 25 km away, Sguirr-na-Ciche, a vast pyramid shape of rock on the horizon. Base camp was achieved before night fell where we sorted our gear out, scoffed lots of hot food and settled down in our gonk bags to grab some zeds before the adventure began.