Sron a Choire Ghairbh - question

[perr]

Can anyone tell me please whether Sron a Choire Ghairbh has more than one cairn on the summit ridge? I walked there this week in thick cloud (via the zigzag path from Cam Bhealach), reached a cairn and assumed it was the summit ; then later began to have doubts as the hill also has an 'East Top'.!

[kaye.cantlay]

I only remember one pretty big cairn when we climbed it....

[Driftwood]

I only remember one cairn and my photos seem to confirm that. It's a left-turn across the plateau from the zig-zag ascent path and close to the corrie edge.

Sron a Choire Ghairbh (looking NNE)

There's also a (shorter and briefer) rise if you turned right, or lower tops much further north then east around the ridge, but I didn't spot anything that would obviously be confusing.

[Sunset tripper]

There are smaller cairns right round the horseshoe at the far end and on the other side on Sean mheall. But the summit cairn in the previous picture not far from the top of the zig zag path is pretty much unmistakable

[Sgurr]

If you are that worried, in future you can always get the summit reference (plus description) from Hillbagging

http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/mountaindetails.php?rf=758

Most smart phones have a GPS function if you don't have an etrex or similar.

[pollyh33]

I certainly hope there is only one cairn. My husband and I had to hunker down every two minutes to prevent getting blown over by a howling gale.

In fact I may well have bummed my way for the final few feet to the cairn and yeah it was pretty big. I was quite reluctant to leave the relative safety it provided.

[gaffr]

I wonder if anyone else recalls the days when there was a wee box on a post on the summit area where you could leave a note in a book of your visit? Unfortunately I did not have a camera at the time so no image of this.

[perr]

Many thanks for the helpful comments. I took this photo at the cairn - have to say it looks rather smaller than the one others have shown, so I have a feeling it's actually the 'East Top' so I'll have to go back to climb the Sron properly! I was aware that the route had a 'leftish' turn above the zigzag path, but became a little disorientated with the clag and trying to avoid snow patches!

[McMonty]

Your cairn picture looks identical to mine from last Tuesday.

According to my GPS it had me at the summit so I'm confident it was the right top although I'll go back someday as I got the feeling it would've been a nice walk had I been able to see anything.

[Sunset tripper]

Perr, that photo you have taken is definately the summit.

[Sgurr]

I forgot to say that in future you can also look on geograph

http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=62414443.

and check if your photo is like any of theirs. Don't forget that cairns can get bigger or smaller over the years.

It is best to get the summit reference and feed it in rather than search by name.


(You probably knew all that)

[Jaxter]

I was there today, that's where I thought was the summit too, so we are either all right or all wrong. After the conditions I suffered today....we'd better be right!!

You could see a cairn on the right from the path too, I woul usually visit it just for funsies but no way today