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Ben Starav + Glas Bheinn Mhor

Ben Starav + Glas Bheinn Mhor


Postby Sweeto » Mon Aug 01, 2016 9:18 am

Route description: Ben Starav and Glas Bheinn Mhòr

Munros included on this walk: Ben Starav, Glas Bheinn Mhòr

Date walked: 01/08/2016

Time taken: 9.5 hours

Distance: 25 km

Ascent: 1390m

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When you read other reports and the first thing you read is "BEN STARAV IS A BEAST" gives you the expectation that you won't be hitting the top for a few hours.

First things first park by a gate on the glen etive road which will
Be to your left hand side and a path going downhill,

1. Bring the midgie spray
2. Bring the wellies as my feet were soaked before we even started climbing the first half hour is just bog.

Begin the ascent and cross the river immediately at the best location you can ( I was nominated to do the leap of faith onto the rock in the middle of the flowing river to lead the two girls I was with over)

Then begin the ascent properly. If I had known that the summit was the spiky arête to my 10-11 o clock my expectation would have been better. However after a wee break half way up to enjoy the view in the sun, we set off for the rest of the walk.

I thought I was at the top 3 times with false summits before realising I had another 200-300m of scrambling to do.

The scrambling is actually quite easy, massive secure rocks, if you lose the path just keep heading up as once at the summit there is a small plateau.

Next was the ridge traverse where we went right instead of left, realising I was supposed to be going away from the Koch I convinced the group it was the wrong way and cloud cover had obscured the path. If lost at the summit just keep going until you hit the ridge, there will be a second cairn and the path is to the left of this taking you down steeply to begin with.

Keep following the path along the ridge, about 20 minutes from summit of Ben Starav you can scramble a ridge walk if preferred for a bit of fun and only adding 5 minutes to travel, but since I had my dog and it was no way suitable I got halfway along and heading down to the path.

The path takes you down to the top of the valley where you have the option to turn off to the right for the very visible Beinn nan Aighenan. I met a few walkers at this junction who told us it would be 2hrs to top and back to where we were. Unfortunately time was getting on in our day so we couldn't go for it.

Instead we headed onwards and upwards climbing the hill straight ahead, again it was in cloud cover so every time we got a false summit (about 5 of them) we thought that was it. This was a pretty steep incline however we were all tired at this point so might be easier than we found it if the legs are doing good.

Hit the summit of Glas Bheinn Mor and took a ten minute breather to enjoy the lovely view of clouds.

The return down is pathed all the way from the summit and takes you round the ridge further until you reach the top of the valley and descend down the spine of the valley following the river. Again pathed the whole way bit further down the path becomes boggy.

Not going to lie moral was low at this point and to make matters worse I slipped on a rock and landed full force on two fingers trying to break the fall.

From the summit it was about 2hrs for us but I am 6'4 and 15 stone I am not the fastest descender. Hitting the big at the bottom I had lost all care for my already wet feet and just trudged through it, my right foot coming out of my shoe 10 minutes from the end as the shoe got sucked into a bog.

If unfortunate like me have no fear, there is a river 5 minutes from the end to clean your muddy equipment and boots.

You'd think that'd be the end but a little bit of humour for the last minute of the walk. Strolling along thinking oh that car seat will feel like a luxury sofa when all I hear is my fiancé screaming my dogs name followed by the earth rumbling sprint of a stag getting chased by my cocker spaniel whose feeling pretty proud of himself for scaring away such a sizeable beast, beautiful creature and I'm just glad it ran away and not towards.

Finally the car and the end of our journey where we drove to the extortionate green welly in tyndrum to resupply where I had to take out a lon to buy juice and snacks for my car crew.

One last word - for any dog walkers reading this try keep your dogs on the grass as much you can as when we got home our dog had blisters on his two front pads and also a tick under his neck.

I will upload photos when I can get them resized
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Sweeto
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 8
Munros:41   
Joined: Jul 7, 2014

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