Stuc a'Chroin

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm running out of easily accessible southern munros to climb. However, there is one that I've been holding off on for a while. It's the closest one to our climbing base - less than 30 minutes away - and I'd been saving it as an easy hike for a short day. The hill is Stuc a'Chroin. I've done Ben Vorlich a couple of times, which is pretty much just a charge up, charge down affair. Last time I did it was my first proper winter munro - although only the top 100m had snow on it (see the December 2007 post!). But that day was a very misty day and once we got up the top, there was a high wind, we couldn't see anything and we decided not to bother following the ridge to Stuc a'Chroin. We'd heard that the ridge was quite interesting, but we didn't really know what the deal was.

Anyway, for various reasons, we decided to go for Stuc a'Chroin, but to make it a little more varied, we thought we'd do it from the south, rather than from the Ben Vorlich route. All prepped for a quick charge up, charge down, we set off from the layby on the A84. Good stuff, a forest path to start with - usually its straight out on to open hillside, so this was a nice change. After the forest, we hit a dirt road which took us along a narrow valley which dropped steeply to our left. Following the valley up, it opened out into a broad, long valley. Stuc a'Chroin was on our left and we started climbing. Steeply upwards on open hillside, but with a much more closed in feeling than the likes of the Drumochter hills - great stuff, it's always good to do something a bit different. A couple of hours after starting, we could sense the top, and then we were upon it.

Over in the distance we could see Ben Vorlich, a few hundred meters higher than us - but Ben Vorlich should only be a few meters higher, not a few hundred... A quick check of the GPS (don't have maps for the trossachs area) and our altitude was only 807. Bollocks. That hill in the distance was Stuc a'Chroin, not Ben Vorlich, and seperating us from it was a descent down to about 650m across rocky, boulder filled, boggy and steep "badlands". We realised that this probably wouldn't be a short day after all. So we set off on an excellent high-level trek across the badlands, with various scrambles, bogs and even an attempt at rock climbing (if we had ropes we could have done it!).


After descending to the lowest point between our initial top and the top of Stuc a'Chroin, we had to reascend. We found a reasonably smooth - albeit fairly steep - route and slowly made our way up. Finally, we hit the top. And this time, we really could see Ben Vorlich, about the same height as us, with another slow, rocky ridge to get to it.




We'd been climbing for about 5 hours by now, so we decided to head back to the dirt road, as the quickest way back - the alternatives were head back the way we came (another 5 hours), head across to Ben Vorlich and down from there (and hitch-hike back to the car). Aiming for the first road, but still prepared for another 5 hour "badlands" style hike, the mist - which had been coming and going throughout the day - suddenly cleared and the smooth, rounded, rock-free western flank of Stuc a'Chroin suddenly appeared! As we started quickly down it, we entered a wide, shallow gully filled with snow of the perfect texture. As you stepped on it you sunk in enough to get a good foothold, but not too far that it was tiring. After a few minutes of quick walking, we though "stuff it", and with a combination of sledging and ice-axe practice (Matt is going for a practice fall in the photo below), we sped down the gully - about 300m descent in about 5 minutes (with photo stops along the way)! Awesome stuff!
Eventually the gully narrowed, turned from snow-filled into a stream, and from there we had an easy descent across broken fearn and heather back to the dirt road. Once on the dirt road it was a fair walk back to the car - about an hour - but we got there eventually. All in all, an excellent walk - a great mix of terrain, an unexpected degree of technical challenge, some excellent sun and snow conditions, and a feeling of wilderness - even though we were only 30 minutes from home!