For any questions about these meets, current members can contact Bookings Secretary via the e-mail address given in the monthly E-News. Non-members please contact the Membership Secretary via the Contacts page of this site). Please follow the guidelines ‘How to Book’ and ‘On the Meet’ in every newsletter and on this Website under News/Special Information/Meet Booking Information. In particular, could you please bring appropriate maps on every meet you attend. For each meet I have listed the maps that are most likely to be useful, but the list isn’t exhaustive, sometimes people will visit an area covered by an adjacent map, and it’s up to each member to have the correct maps for his/her chosen route.

Prospective Members - please see further information at the bottom of this page.....
 

Feb 4 – 11, Scotland Winter Meet.  Crianlarich/Tyndrum, self-catering house/cottage accommodation.

Accommodation in a large very comfortable house between Crianlarich and Tyndrum in the Southern Highlands (for those of you with long memories, the same place we used a few years ago).   Given the right conditions this is a great area for winter hillwalking. There will be technical winter routes available for those who possess the skills and gear, but there are also winter hillwalking routes that are not technical and should be within the capabilities of most members who possess basic ice axe and crampon skills. Bear in mind that in Scotland at this time of the year you must be prepared for severe cold weather, high winds, blizzards etc; you can expect the mountains to be snow-covered; in places the snow will have turned to ice. To cope with these conditions it is essential to have good 4-season boots, winter-grade waterproofs and clothing, etc, and to have an ice axe and a pair of crampons, and to be familiar with the basic (ie. walking) use of this equipment.

March 2 – 4, South Wales, Black Mountains, Court Farm Bunkhouse at Llanthony.   16 places @ £32 each.

Return visit to a bunkhouse that was highly thought of after our first trip there.  Spectacular location in the middle of the Black Mountains.  Pub nearby (well 2 actually!).  Fine walking in all directions on the Black Mountains., or the Brecons are accessible with a short drive.

Suggested maps: Landranger 161 (for the Black Mountains) and 160 (for the Brecons)
 

March 23 – 25, Yorkshire Dales, Airton Quaker Hostel  8 places @ £32 each.

Small bunkhouse in the Dales village of Airton.  On the Pennine way a few miles south of Malham, one of the best known areas of the Dales.  Excellent walking, a chance to see Malham Cove, Goredale Scar.

Suggested maps: Landranger 98, or Yorkshire Dales Explorer (OL) maps

April 20 – 22, Camping, Swanage, Dorset

One of our regular spring meets: attractive walking on the Dorset Coast Path or the Purbeck Hills.

Suggested maps: Landranger 195 (194 may also be useful)

May 5 – 12, Scotland Early Spring Meet, Skye

We have reserved 6 beds at the Glen Brittle hut for the week Sat 5th May to the following Sat. The booking policy has now changed and each person would need to pay a non-refundable 50% of the cost of the week with the reminder 4 weeks beforehand. This would mean anyone wishing to attend would need to send Julie a cheque for £24.50. The cost is £7.00 a night all in. Or obviously you can take pot luck nearer the time, or camp.

May 11 – 13, Camping, Patterdale, Lakes.  Details to follow.

June 2 - 9, Scotland Late Spring Meet, Ullapool. Self-catering houses, £120/place.

The 2012 Scotland Spring week Ullapool up in the far NW Highlands. Ullapool is a small fishing town and port, with plenty of facilities such as shops, pubs and restaurants, and is surrounded by Munros, eg The Fannichs, Ben More Assynt, and some well-known lower hills such as Suilven. Sandy has booked two large houses in the middle of the village - 10-11 places. At the time of writing it looks like all the places are taken; but if you are interested it is still contacting Sandy in case places become available due to folk dropping out.

June 22 – 24, Camping, North Wales.  Details to follow.

Jul 13 – 15, Camping, Welsh Borders (Date subject to confirmation)

August 17 – 20 (3 nights), Camping Barn (ie basic bunkhouse), Wasdale, Lakes.  Details to follow,

Information for Prospective Members

This information is provided to give people who may be considering joining the Club a summary of STMC’s meets for the next few months. This also gives an idea of the range of the venues that we normally visit; in February we normally have a week of winter mountaineering in Scotland, and we organise a further week in Scotland at the end of May. The Club does not normally arrange overseas trips, but groups of members often get together to arrange trips to the Alps or the Pyrenees.

All meets provide opportunities for walking, whilst in North Wales and the Lakes there will often be a party doing some scrambling. Many areas also provide opportunities for technical climbing, notably the Peak District (on the gritstone edges) and North Wales. But if you’re not interested in climbing don’t worry, climbing-only meets are a rarity and there will virtually always be people on the meet to walk with. The only meet where we impose a restriction on attendance is the Scotland Winter Week, where it would normally be dangerous to go out on the hills unless you are equipped with ice axe and crampons, and have some experience in their use. The winter meets in North Wales and the Lakes sometimes, but by no means always, coincide with serious snow and ice conditions, but there are usually lower routes that you can do if you don’t have ice axe and crampons.

People are expected to be suitably equipped for their chosen routes and the conditions – usually this just means warm clothing, decent waterproofs and boots, plus food and drink – click on Equipment for more info. The only other requirement is that we do expect everyone to have appropriate maps, so that no-one is just totally depending on someone else to do the route finding and map reading.

Each meet has an assigned ‘meet secretary’, whose contact details are provided to members. The meet secretary’s role is to arrange lifts to and from the meet, and access to the accommodation (but not to lead or organise routes in the hill). The procedure for booking onto a meet is simply to contact the meet secretary.