free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Despite the weather I decided to give these two a crack.Got the bus to Crianlarich and made my along the road to the layby, but with a mixture of early morning fuzzyness and being a bit over zealous to get going,I took what i thought was a bit of short cut through a gate and to the wrong tunnel under the railway.There was an old rickety gate blocking the way through the ft deep puddle in the tunnel.....great start ...so with feet slightly damp and lightweights soaked already from the rain I ventured on.I was now on the wrong side of the river but thought what the hec I'll cross further upstream so just followed the edge of the forest and river on up.With the river Falloch looking more like the Danube my options for crossing were pretty slim but with a few jump points in mind i made my way to the end of the forest.looking upriver i could see it wasn't going to get much easier for a while so headed back down to a steel bar I had found that spanned the river,a quick test for strength and across I went.
Now glad i was on the right side of,and hadn't fell into,the river i was quickly on the gravel path so set off at a good pace to make up for lost time,however the track quickly ran out and it was now all bog some of it way over the gaitors.Between fighting through the bog and the gale force wind i wasn't making much progress so once up onto the start of the first ascent it was time for a break and refuel
- be there soon
- onward n upwards
About 2 mins after this photo was taken a blizzard of hail set in and the wind was getting stronger but at least i now had a pretty decent path to follow to the summit.I approached the summit from the rear (SE) to avoid the wind as much as I could.On summit the wind was horrendous and i was reduced to a cat crawl on the peaks which there are 4 of and according to the map the 2nd last one was the summit although the first peak looks higher.I braved a photo at the cairn but while holding on to the rock and doing the rest with one hand it didn't turn out too great.Not wanting to get blown off I got down as quick as I could toward the bealach.
After a mainly on the bum descent due to missing the path off I made my way over and onto the slope of An Casteal,found some shelter in the rocks and had a bite to eat.At this point I considered just heading straight down but as it happened the hail had stopped and it was quite clear so up I went.On the way up I met 3 walkers coming down which was quite reassuring that I wasn't the only nutter up here
With the wind still howling I reached the summit so a quick down to one knee to take a photo and headed straight off for the shelter of a small gully to get my breath back.
As I headed back down I seen quite a few walkers sheltering from the wind or heading downhill, this really wasn't a day for
it.The going downhill from the summit was very boggy and trying not to slide all the way I made my way quickly down as my legs were like ice.A check of my watch told me I had 3 hours to spare until my bus home. ....oops so i calmed the pace and took it easy with a nice walk along the road to the pub to warm up.Sods law the sun came out and things seemed to calm as I got to A82.
These two were hard going but still had a gr8 day as always.