Stob Gabhar and Stob a'Choire Odhair

Walking with the Edinburgh Hillwalkers group again, this time up by Bridge of Orchy. We parked just off the West Highland Way, where it brushes past the small road which heads off behind the Bridge of Orchy Hotel. A fairly long walk, about 20km in total. Misty weather for much of the day, and exposed in a few small sections on the ridge between the two hills. When we got to the top of the second hill we could see all the way back to the carpark, it looked likes miles (it was).
 

Stuchd an Lochain

Although one of the nearest hills to Edinburgh as the crow flies, Stuchd an Lochain needs a narrow, undulating, twisty, bumpy drive up past the Ben Lawers car park, along the reservoir and down the other side. And then another narrow, slightly-less-undulating, twisty, bumpy drive along Glen Lyon, until we reached the damn at Loch an Daimh. We parked there and headed up the hill on the standard route.

The full circle around the Loch and then over to Meall Buidhe looks great but we're saving Meall Buidhe for a mixed bike/hike at some point (possible from Rannoch Station), so we just did Stuchd an Lochain today. Only took about 3.5 hours - the car is already at 400m at the parking point, so just had another 560m to go. Not quite as challenging as the Aonach Eagach ridge last month but good walking all the same. It's one of these remote-feeling valleys that doesn't have a major road running through it, it was quite interesting as a lot of the forestry looked natural, rather than the densely planted artificial timbre forests that dominate most of the other hills.

Quite misty at the top though, not much to see - but some nice views on the way down. Mixed weather - warm drizzle, cool drizzle, cool and dry and warm and dry. The sun came out after about 1pm so the day turned out quite nice.

Aonach Eagach

I often find myself up one of the Glencoe hills looking North across to Aonach Eagach. And sometimes when walking with various people, there is mention of Aonach Eagach, usually along with hushed muttering about "narrow", "exposed" or "one day...".

Matt and I had decided to go for another walk, and after looking at the very small selection of hills remaining in the central belt that hadn't been done, we though "let's do it". Let's do Aonach Eagach. We never have much time these days though, and Glencoe is a 3 hour drive from Edinburgh/Glasgow, so we thought to assist with getting back at a reasonable time, we would drive up the night before, camp, then set off early the following morning.

So on Friday night after work, we drove up, arriving at about 10pm. As it was only 8 days after the longest day of the year, it was still quite bright, so we parked in the (now empty) tourist carpark right in the center of Glencoe and set off down into the valley to find a camping spot.We found somewhere a few hundred meters from the road, on a small knoll of grass which was very dry, quite flat and quite soft.

Normally when I camp, I wake in the morning feeling rather stiff but the next morning, despite using my fleece jacket as a pillow, I awoke at 4:45am feeling very well rested and very relaxed - this was the most comfortable camp site I've ever had! I'd say it was as comfortable as my bed at home (and that's not an uncomfy bed).

The sun was already up but because we were in a valley surrounded by mountains, and the sun was only just above the horizon, the light was coming in parallel to the ground - so the very top of Buachaille Etiv Mor (which was looming above out campsite) was in the sun but the rest of the hill was shaded by the other mountains around us. It was very impressive! Still had a few patches of snow on its North-facing slopes too.

After breakfasting on some Alpen and packing away the camping kit and stashing it in the car, we set off 20 meters up the road to the parking spot for the start of the route up the east end of Aonach Eagach. It was about 6am but already there was a minibus parked there with a load of people inside. It seemed rather early for anyone to be on the hill (apart from those who had camped the previous night), as we passed them we saw a number of people huddled inside the minibus with a few others outside tending a large hot water drum of some sort. We could smell the coffee as we passed, and noticed a piece of paper stuck to the inside of the vans windshield saying "Three peaks". A while later while we were halfway up the hill, we saw them drive off - I guess they were having a food/coffee rest stop before continuing on up to Ben Nevis.

The walk up the side of the valley was fairly steep and fairly relentless - which was a good thing, means good progress. Despite it being mid-summer and anblue-skies sunny day, we still needed jackets - we were in the shade for much of the main ascent and it was still early in the morning, before the air had warmed up. By 7.30am we had reached the top of the first climb and were onto the ridge. We could now look out over Bidean nam Bian to the South and to the North, bits of the Lochaber valley and Ben Nevis in the distance.

Straight after reaching the first top at about 7:45am, we had the first interesting bit of the ridge, a climb downwards over steep rocks and shuffling around exposed ledges. For the next 3 or so hours, we only covered around 3km, going from steep descent to low grade rock climbs. I won't go into details, but it was excellent fun. A little different to the hills we usually do, but excellent fun. I did think a number of times that if we messed up one of the many handholds or footholds along the ridge, there would be a good chance of ending up dead - but also going through my mind was the fact that if you make a slight error while driving, you could end up dead (120mph closing speed between two vehicles on the winding A85 on the way up the Glencoe - one small miscalculation and that's the end for you!). So perhaps the Aonach Eagach ridge feels a bit dangerous, but it really is just that it is a type of risk that you're less used to dealing with. Driving - you do it every day, byt scrambling along a narrow, exposed, undulating ridge for 3km while 3000ft up a mountain is something you do less often. We took our time on the ridge, slowly and carefully placing hands and feet, and slowly making progress along the ridge.

We reached the second munro, and the end of the ridge, at about 10:45am - pretty good! Got some views over Lochaber, and then set off down the mountain. I didn't bother with taking any lunch - you eat lunch at mid-day, yet I figured we would be mostly down by mid-day, so carrying lunch is an extra faff. Instead I powered myself up and along the ridge on a number of Alpen breakfast bars - these seemed to do the trick, minimum fuss, plenty of energy. And no concern about the refrigeration of sandwiches the previous night.

The climb down was over loose, steep scree slopes for much of the route and took quite a while - we didn't get down until about 1pm! This was a bit longer than we expected, and once down we had about 40 minutes of walking along a path next to the road to get back to the car. Down in the valley the

Buachaille Etive Beag (Stob Coire Raineach and Stob Dubh)

Walking with the Edinburgh Hillwalkers group again, a late spring walk up Buachaille Etive Beag! Very sunny all day long, with a few small patches of snow to cross but nothing major

Meall a'Choire Leith

After doing Meall Corranaich a few months ago but not doing the nearby Meall a'Choire Leith, and because we're running out of hill nearby to do, we decided to go back and get Meall a'Choire Leith done.

This time round it was much wetter - the snow last of the snow was melting after a few weeks of rapid temperature rises, the ground was saturated and it rained most of the day.

The start of the walk was very interesting - there's an old path leading up into the hills from the road and it takes you into some Shielings - small ruined stone dwellings built (and vacated) a few hundred years ago. All that remains now are depressions in the ground and a ring or stones which mark out the wall of the single-room buildings. Very interesting to see, and to imagine what things would have been like a few hundred years ago, there were a fair number of these dwellings visible and it was not that far of a stretch of the imagination to visualise yourself walking down their high street.

Cutting through the Shielings was a river which, due to the large amounts of meltwater, had turned into a raging torrent which we didn't fancy crossing. After following the river downstream for a kilometer or so, we found something possibly related to the nearby damn - the river hit a small damn and then dissappeared underground. The other side of the damn was bone dry and you could see the dry riverbed stretching off down the valley, but the river had just gone. So we crossed the river at the damn and the headed up the mountain.

As we got a bit higher we found a couple of patches of snow and once up top, it was quite misty and wet so there wasn't much to see. I seem not to have taken any photos, bit of a shame.

At some point on the way back down, my heavy four season boots gave up the battle against wading through saturated boggy ground and water started leaking in. Feet were still warm so no problem, but think it's time to give them another waterproofing with the beeswax.

Stuc a Chroin

Getting late in the winter walking season so snow was melting, but on this day the winds were extremely high and so felt very wintery. At the start of the walk just off the main road the sky was overcast with drizzly drain but as we ascended, the winds picked up, becoming extremely gusty and making it challenging to speak or breathe at a couple of exposed points on the climb. The final push was near white-out conditions and high winds.

Beinn Tulaichean

Went with the Edinburgh Hillwalkers group for a walk up Cruach Ardrain and Beinn Tulaichean. Awesome conditions! Dry and cloudy at the start of the walk, and the snowline was at about 300m. As we climbed up the mountain the sun came out and snow started melting. I saw my first ever avalanche! Albeit a small one, some snow dislodged itself in from a small gully and a few snow boulders tumbled 30 meters in our direction. We were out of the gully so no major worries, but very interesting to see.

As we climbed up the final ascent, the wind picked up and spindrift swept over the snow and was blasted into our faces, but with goggles on we continued. After reaching the summit of Beinn Tulaichean we decided not to go for Cruach Ardrain and just to head down, shortly after leaving the summit the winds dropped and then it was a leisurely stroll in the sunshine and snow to get to the bottom of the hill.

Ben Vorlich, Loch Earn

A winter walk up Ben Vorlich, good snow cover from about halfway up with sleet falling all the way down to the carpark.

Meall Corraniach

Past the Ben Lawers carpark and on to the end of the reservoir, our hill for the day was Meall Corraniach. This was quite an easy hill, not far from out walking base and you start by driving up to something like 500m, so only another 600m to go. There were patches of of snow on the ground above about 400m although the main snowline didn't start until about 700m. The road was clear of snow and ice apart from occasional patches of snow at the side, and shortly before we pulled over at the parking spot we passed a minibus full of people who looked to be setting out for a day of cross-country skiing. That's a good sign of snow further up.

Once we got to the parking spot, the first task was to dig ourselves into it - the parking area was covered by snow/ice about three inches thick and try as we might (wheels spinning away), the car wouldn't get on top of it. So out with the emergency snow shovel and the dug a clearing in the snow/ice and after 15 minutes of work managed to slip and slide the car over some remaining bits of snow/ice and into the parking space.

As we walked up the hill the patches of snow becames extensive patches of snow, and then all of a sudden we were in deep, unbroken snow. The cloud came in giving us excellent periods of near-whiteout. A good opportunity to practice our micro-navigation skills, which we had been reading up on.

A reasonably straight forward walk up to the top and then we headed down the way we came, and back to the car. About 3.5 hours round trip, I think.