Beinn Achaladair

So for a second time, I decided to do Beinn Achaladair, this time with Alastair. It has good parking, is fairly straight forward to get to, and I didn't see much last time I was there. It was quite wet and windy previously, this time started similarly although without the rain. The long slog up the valley was reasonably uneventful, although as we rose higher up, the cold artic winds changed from fast to very fast and were of course heading straight down the valley towards us, for maximum noise and atmosphere.

Eventually we hit the snow line and entered a mini-arctic landscape, all good fun. The ground was relatively flat around here though, and peppered with streams and ponds - although most of this was beneath the snow so we couldn't see it, and the snow was just beginning to melt so was quite unstable. Careful navigation (ie. staying away from any natural sloping depressions in the ground) and the occasional sprint-and-hope ensued, until we'd got past the trouble area.

Finally onto the main ridge and now we weren't in the shelter of the valley, we were exposed to the full force of the winds. I've had some windy days on the hills, this is now the windiest hill day I've had to date! Awesome stuff. Funny how things turn out in photos though. Whilst on the hill, in the wind, you're surrounded by a terrific thundering noise, with constant buffeting which makes movement a real challenge. But later when you look at your photos of it, you just see a guy crawling on the ground -- what the hell is he doing? There was a good reason for it at the time!

A good walk overall, and pretty good weather in the end. Got to see out from the top this time, although with the relentless wind, we didn't stay long to enjoy the view - the priority was to get off the top of the mountain and get some shelter for a lunch break!

Stob Ghabhar

The first hill of 2009: Stob Ghabhar. Although we've had some looow temperatures across the UK over the past week or so, there hasn't been any significant amounts of rain, so very little (if any) snow. So we weren't hoping for too much and at the start of the walk it was pretty much as expected with little snow, although every river, stream and -- quite often -- path we found was frozen over. However, we were approaching the mountain from the sunny south and once we got in to the center of the mountain, surrounded by steep cliffs, things began feeling more wintery. There was frost on top of frost (layered many times, looking like a light-dusting of snow). And then higher up, the rocks would be covered with a thin film of slippery ice/frozen dew. And as things got steeper and higher, hard pack snow/ice began appearing, until we found ourselves scrambling up iced over rock on one of the harder approaches to Stob Ghabhar. There was no way back, so we pressed on, finally hitting the top of the "Aonach Eagach" ridge on Stob Ghabhar (not the other Aonach Eagach ridge to the north of the A82 beyond Rannoch Moor) at about 1:30pm. And then after a food stop, it was an easy walk up to the summit of Stob Ghabhar, and then the long walk back down Stob Ghabhar, taking a south-facing (so snow/ice free!) route back down, over a grassy slope. Got back to the car at about 4:30pm and left at 9:45pm, not too bad a walk.