Uncompleatable hills?

[iangpark]

Just wondering if there's any hills/ridges/walks that anyone can never seem to get a good day on, whether that means cloud cover, rain, dangerousness, bog-factor, windyness etc. that has forced you to turn back prematurely?

I think this question has arisen as most of the walks I do tend to be awfully timed to coincide with bad weather. Arran seems to be the place that is constantly enshrouded in mist for me - think it's mainly the time of year though.

Would love to hear some stories! ,


iangpark

[basscadet]

Just wondering if there's any hills/ridges/walks that anyone can never seem to get a good day on, whether that means cloud cover, rain, dangerousness, bog-factor, windyness etc. that has forced you to turn back prematurely?

I think this question has arisen as most of the walks I do tend to be awfully timed to coincide with bad weather. Arran seems to be the place that is constantly enshrouded in mist for me - think it's mainly the time of year though.

Would love to hear some stories! ,


iangpark

Aye I was lucky with Arran but Rum always looks horrific whenever I have a suitable long weekend. Beinn nan Aighenan took 4 tries - was my nemesis for a while...

I found it a brilliant experience to compleat - now bagging isn't the be all and end all, couldn't care less if I got to the top or not

[iangpark]

basscadet,

Never been to Rum but it might just be my favourite Scottish island - perfectly small but with perfectly sized and difficult hills. Think if I do go it'll need to be well-planned with decent weather - would hate to go and be enshrouded in clag! Wish I could enjoy not reaching the top like you can, but I think it'll still be a few years before I can enjoy the experience for what it is

RTC,

Those are some heartbreaking moments! When I did the Cobbler it was a beautiful day but we went to the southern summit. My dad asked if we should go to the top and I said no - don't think I've ever regretted anything so much in my life

[Sgurr]

Tried for Meall Chean Dearg with friends pre the days of GPS. Got to a cairn and friends said "Think this is it " We were in clag, and walked round it, went down on all sides so it seemd that we were at the top. Husband said "When I was last here, the cairn looked much bigger." Much talk about how it is impossible to remember a cairn you last met 20 years ago, and how some people kick down cairns as they think it is a desecration of the mountain. We went down. Next day looked across and saw a huge lump on it. Friends said "It's 4 men standing together"...but it didn't move.

Went a couple of years later from the north and walked all round until we were in much the same place. Rain horrendous, wind horrendous. Friends started CRAWLING up the ridge. I said "I think I'm going home". They (all blokes) said "Good idea!" so we went home. Climbed it next year with husband and included the Corbett as he was FED UP with accompanying me up hills he had already done.


Apologies to all who have heard this story before.

Hills (Marilyns) I would like to climb, but never will are Stac Lee

Stac an Armin


And probably the other St. Kilda sea stacks that I haven't yet done.
Only one woman has done them all, and Hats off to Jenny Hatfield

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37440034

[BobMcBob]

I've tried to climb the corbett Beinn Maol Chaluim 3 times from the Glen Coe side and never made it to the top. The first two times I got beaten back by sudden appalling weather. The third time I made it within sight of the top but turned around because it was December, snowing, and getting dark. Finding your way back down on that side is tricky at the best of times

It has become something of a bugbear with me. I camp in Glen Coe a lot and it's always there, looking at me. I know it's daft to climb it from the Glen Coe side when the route up from Glen Etive is simple but I'm damned if I going to do it from anywhere else now

But I think the reason I never get a good day on it is that there's so much else in the vicinity that's better and I'll go and do any of those on a decent day, so Callum's Bald Hill gets left for days when I either can't be bothered or the weather looks bad.

[Cairngormwanderer]

I've tried to climb the corbett Beinn Maol Chaluim 3 times from the Glen Coe side and never made it to the top. .

I climbed Beinn Maol Chaluim 'sort of' from the Glen Coe side. Me and a mate were staying in Glen Etive, but climbed onto the Bidean massif via the Sron na Lairig ridge. Reaching the top of that we thought it a fine scramble and proceeded to enjoy the wander up to Sgreamahc and along to the top of Bidean. But some mania made us believe that a good short-cut home would be to go via Beinn Maol Chaluim, so we descended to the col from the west top of Bidean - which has to be the steepest, most unstable slope I've every been on. We ended up coming down widely apart because of the amount of falling rock, and my mate still swears he descended a stretch of overhanging scree.
Beinn Maol Chaluim itself was a delight, but our trauma wasn't over: in descending from there to Glen Etive we ended up in a forestry plantation to thick we were reduced to crawling on our hands and knees. The horror! Oh the horror!

Hmm. Sorry for that digression. Must still be raw after all these years.

[prog99]

I've done Beinn Maol Chaluim from Bidean too, an unforgettable crumbling experience.

[Nigels3011]

I only managed the Inn Pinn on my third attempt. Technically it was my second attempt as on my first attempt, when I "turned back" I was still in the Sligachan Hotel Bar at the time. The best time to turn back I think. I had a guide scheduled but the weather was so bad that we abandoned before we even started.

[BobMcBob]

I've tried to climb the corbett Beinn Maol Chaluim 3 times from the Glen Coe side and never made it to the top. .

I climbed Beinn Maol Chaluim 'sort of' from the Glen Coe side. Me and a mate were staying in Glen Etive, but climbed onto the Bidean massif via the Sron na Lairig ridge. Reaching the top of that we thought it a fine scramble and proceeded to enjoy the wander up to Sgreamahc and along to the top of Bidean. But some mania made us believe that a good short-cut home would be to go via Beinn Maol Chaluim, so we descended to the col from the west top of Bidean - which has to be the steepest, most unstable slope I've every been on. We ended up coming down widely apart because of the amount of falling rock, and my mate still swears he descended a stretch of overhanging scree.
Beinn Maol Chaluim itself was a delight, but our trauma wasn't over: in descending from there to Glen Etive we ended up in a forestry plantation to thick we were reduced to crawling on our hands and knees. The horror! Oh the horror!

Hmm. Sorry for that digression. Must still be raw after all these years.

Funnily enough my first attempt on BMC was supposed to finish with returning to Glen Coe by going up onto Bidean. Having read that I'm pretty glad the weather turned bad now

[Alteknacker]

I've tried to climb the corbett Beinn Maol Chaluim 3 times from the Glen Coe side and never made it to the top. .

I climbed Beinn Maol Chaluim 'sort of' from the Glen Coe side. Me and a mate were staying in Glen Etive, but climbed onto the Bidean massif via the Sron na Lairig ridge. Reaching the top of that we thought it a fine scramble and proceeded to enjoy the wander up to Sgreamahc and along to the top of Bidean. But some mania made us believe that a good short-cut home would be to go via Beinn Maol Chaluim, so we descended to the col from the west top of Bidean - which has to be the steepest, most unstable slope I've every been on. We ended up coming down widely apart because of the amount of falling rock, and my mate still swears he descended a stretch of overhanging scree.
Beinn Maol Chaluim itself was a delight, but our trauma wasn't over: in descending from there to Glen Etive we ended up in a forestry plantation to thick we were reduced to crawling on our hands and knees. The horror! Oh the horror!

Hmm. Sorry for that digression. Must still be raw after all these years.

Funnily enough my first attempt on BMC was supposed to finish with returning to Glen Coe by going up onto Bidean. Having read that I'm pretty glad the weather turned bad now

This is now a bit of a digression,but.....

I had my eye on the route to BMC via Bidean, but in the end opted to go from Glen Etive (TR from March 2016). But when I looked at the slope referred to, it looked steep but not scree - see pic below - and I thought that at some time in the future I might do it this way. Where exactly is the scree?

20160315_084240[/url]

[prog99]

This is one of my shots -
http://www.prog99.com/Hillwalking%20in% ... _4213.html

Not easy I make out I'll admit.

[Cairngormwanderer]

This is one of my shots -
http://www.prog99.com/Hillwalking%20in% ... _4213.html

Not easy I make out I'll admit.

Yeah, that looks like it. Less pure scree than I remembered, but look closely and you see that it's loose and steep - and when you work your way over to the bits that look less steep... they're only like that because they're above an even steeper bit. And none of it is attached. Brrrrrr.

[Boris_the_Bold]

It took me four goes to be sure I'd been on the summit of Tom Buidhe (at the head of Glen Doll), which is often described as one of the easiest Munros. The 4th (successful) attempt was a great day out last June , up Glen Callater and back to Glen Shee.

BtB

[Dave Hewitt]

The opposite is an interesting question too: hills that you've never failed to reach the top of in multiple attempts. You need to be a serial repeater for this really to be a playable game of course, but lots of people are, with local hills that they climb on a regular basis. My patch is the Ochils as some of you know, and while I've every now and then retreated low down from things, and even from half-height on very rare occasions, I'm not sure I've ever been anywhere hear the top of Ben Cleuch without actually managing to get there. Today saw the latest such ascent, in very nice conditions, and that was no.1219. More often what happens is that the plan gets changed quite early on - eg there was a very windy day a couple of years ago when a friend and I set off to do Wood Hill and then Ben Cleuch but we couldn't really stand up on Wood Hill so we dived off from there. But that's still a fair step from Cleuch even in good conditions.

A definite version of the same idea is that I've never climbed Ben Ever without linking either to or from Ben Cleuch. The Ben Ever tally stands at 914, and at some stage the sequence will be broken I guess, either deliberately or courtesy of poor conditions, but I'm now quite keen to stretch it to 1000 at least. Closest I've come to "failing" with the link was on a summer's day a few years ago when there was electrical weather around - I got up Ben Ever and was ready to exit stage left at a rate of knots if a particularly menacing lump of lightning-emitting cloud came any closer, but thankfully it headed off into Fife and Cleuch was in due course reached in an unzapped state. Not sure there have been any other very near-failures with the link, despite some screaming gales and plenty of sloggy snow visits, although there have been occasions when I reached Cleuch first from some other direction with the intention of Ever but then decided not to tag on the bonus top because it was just too foul and I preferred getting back to home comforts asap.

[GillSte]

It took me 3 goes to find a way up Cruach Ardrain that didn't involve drowning in peat bogs. Once upon a time, the SMC Munros book used to suggest a route to Grey Height that goes up a fire break through the forest (this was in the days when I used to think that guidebooks are useful). In the winter, it was the most disgusting quagmire, and after 2 attempts ended with me up to my thighs in it , I decided that creativity was needed. Coire Ardrain is the way forward. Beautiful coire, dry grassy terrain, and, in the winter, the good and interesting route up the east face. There's a nice descent down a steep gully before you get to Grey Height. Love this route so much, I've done it 3 times.