Sneaking up on The Cobbler

[lomondwalkers]

Woke up yesterday to a dreich morning and no plans or desire to do any hills. The only 'event' of the day was to put the car into the garage for repair (again!!!! ) and pick up the courtesy car in Dumbarton. On the short drive home, the cloud was starting to lift to reveal the snow level on the Luss Grahams at around 400m..... Hmmmmmm interesting....... Waited a while to see if things cleared up, and by lunchtime things were looking fairly bright A quick text to my partner in grime and a plan was hatched to sneak up on The Cobbler from Glen Croe as we'd been the usual ways before.

We parked up in the layby on the right handside of the a83 (approx. 243060 just before the bridge) where there is a stile over the fence to the right of the unnamed stream, from there a path (feint at times) follows the stream until it meets up and crosses then follows the tributary flowing down from the higher ground of the Northwest facing slopes of The Cobbler, and from here the first of the fresh snow was met and the views were opening up

Beinn Ime summit just right of centre

Ben Donich

The view ahead

Progress was fairly quick upto around 700m , then became slower and slower as the snow deepened to knee level, and finally reached the familiar cairn in just under 2 hours, and even with a good bit of cloud around, the views were still fantastic, so good to see some white back on the hills after a fairly mild Winter. We topped up on food and water then headed upto the summit pinnacle, no threading the needle today even if there wasn't much snow on it We stayed here for a while, one minute clagged in the next minute some fine views, taking it all in as this could be our last Winter walk of the season. Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the summit and back to the cairn where we retraced our ascent route. I chose to do this mainly on foot, Del 'chose' to do most of the descent on his bahooki Great day, great views, and as always, great company

Some photies....

View behind us on ascent

Old man with walking stick

Summit crags

Loch Long, Loch Lomond & Ben Lomond

Fangs for the memories

North peak cairn

Nice!!

Made it!

Oi Oi!!!!

Atmospheric

As brave as I got!

Del Boy

Summit view

[SusieThePensioner]

Dave, glad you and Derek were able to sneak on out and do a walk

Some great photos showing the contrasts in your weather, fantastic

[ChrisW]

Cracking hike LW, those beautiful pics speak for themselves.....but that knee deep snow.....you can keep that stuff I've seen enough of that to last me a lifetime

[pollyh33]

Fantastic to see the double D's out on the hills again

Brilliant set of photo's Dave, just a pity none of them are of you and Derek on top of the pinnacle

Loved this

[lomondwalkers]

Dave, glad you and Derek were able to sneak on out and do a walk

Some great photos showing the contrasts in your weather, fantastic

Cheers Susie, just looked too good to miss once the cloud lifted

Cracking hike LW, those beautiful pics speak for themselves.....but that knee deep snow.....you can keep that stuff I've seen enough of that to last me a lifetime

No wonder there's been a shortage of the white stuff here with all the snow you've been getting!! It's nice to see it back for a wee while

Fantastic to see the double D's out on the hills again

Brilliant set of photo's Dave, just a pity none of them are of you and Derek on top of the pinnacle

Loved this

I'll get Delilah back up there in summer and promise him a 24 pack of Peroni if he does it

[Jockstar]

Looks like you guys had lots of fun and It would have been good to get a photo of you boys on top of The Cobbler That can wait for a better another day. !!

[lomondwalkers]

A great day was had JS I was very tempted to do the pinnacle, but the snow/ice on the slant put me off

[Sarah86]

I had a week off work last week and had orginally planned to walk The Cobbler for the first time as it looks a great walk. Very glad I didn't after seeing you in deep snow as I don't have the experience for that and would have had to turn back. Fantastic photos, looks like a great day out.

[rockhopper]

Cracking day despite the claggy bits - well done. "The view ahead" certainly looks very steep but guess it gets you up there quickly - cheers

[ngm1scot]

Great pics - specially liked the Loch Long one. Still a bit of a mountain fearty when it comes to snow but great route.