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What better way to spend the run up to Christmas than surrounded by snow in the hills.
It beats the busy city centre and the shopping outlets that is for sure! Never even passed a single sole on the hills either! Was bliss.
This munro i had read has been described as a boring munro to climb, i beg to differ. Perhaps people draw this conclusion due to a lengthy walk in/out before you start the ascent of the actual munro but the passage in you are walking along by Beinn Dorain on one side and Beinn a Chaisteil to Beinn nam Fuaran on the other. What is not to love? Well, the weather was not to love today; torrential rain, torrential hail and gale force winds.
We followed the track in between the hills, crossing over the Fjords, the high river levels meant some detouring occurred to avoid over the boot high water. Nothing worse than hiking with wet feet and as waterproof as my boots are, if the water level is higher than my boot then it is game over! The walk in is a straight forward flat easy walk on a double track.
![mhanach 7.jpg]()
- Walk in to Beinn Mhanach
The track splits at a fork where you can take to routes to get to the summit, the first head right towards Loch Lyon and the second left up and around the back of Beinn a'Chuirn. We chose the first option and continued on towards Loch Lyon. Leaving the track after a further 15 minutes or so we started on the semi steep ascent of Ben Mhanach, The weather worsened as we hit around 550m and with snow underfoot deepening it was taking longer to ascend and normal.
There is a fence that runs up the munro which we handrailed until 820m then took a bearing across to the summit. The weather at this point was not on our side, there was low visibility and the hail was really falling hard. It was a slow ascent, fighting against gale force winds it would have been easy to miss the summit if not walking on a bearing.
We got lucky at the summit with a break in the clouds and the views across to Beinn a Chreachain were pretty impressive! I failed to see why people said that Beinn Mhanach, the southern munro was a boring munro to hike. Unfortunately the temperature was a few below freezing and the wind was gale force so spending more than 10 minutes taking in the beauty of the Scottish landscape that surrounded us had to come to an end.
The route plan was to head up Beinn Mhanach, summit, then descend and head up to Beinn a Chuirn top. However this would me walking face first into the wind and the hail, not an experience that would have been enjoyable at all so we made the decision based on the weather and headed back down off the munro. Battling the wind and hail was pretty tough, being blown a few paces sideways for every 5 steps you descended was challenging but it is all in the hill walking spirit! Despite the harsh conditions it was still one of the fastest descents i have done off a munro!
I was extremely happy to get back to the track to begin the walk out back to the car. It was a wet walk out, the rain got worse and to save time we stuck to the track and took the hit and went through the river crossings to knee deep at one point to get back the quickest way possible. The sight of the car was a delight! Dry shoes and i could finally get round to eating my sandwiches that i had not wanted to on the hill as there was not a single wind shelter on Beinn Mhanach!
My experience of Beinn Mhanach, taking the weather factor out, it was a pretty decent walk, the munro i wouldn't say is boring, yes the walk in and out is long and the ascent is pretty steep but you still get the amazing views from the top and over towards Glen Lyon. For a munro that i didnt have much of an expectation for it was sweet way to spend Christmas Eve.
Ideally i aimed to give a bit of a different perspective of Beinn Mhanach as an enjoyable walk and not a boring one!
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed the photos!
