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