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Ben Vorlich by the Ardlui Alternative
by The English Alpinist » Fri Jan 20, 2023 6:01 pm
Date walked: 15/01/2023
Time taken: 5.5 hours
Distance: 11 km
Ascent: 1016m
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- Number '85' is for backward Vorlich walkers.
I had morale issues for this trip, half of which was personal and the other half weather; namely the potential misery and/or danger of it. I actually set off on the Friday, but stopped 40 miles up the M6 (Tebay) and decided I didn't want to go. The forecast was 80km wind and moderate snow for Saturday - an accurate word for which is 'blizzard', surely - so I felt my notion of even attempting a 'safe' Graham that day was not a good one. The forecast over the next 3 days improved, so I set out once again on Saturday evening. Ben Vorlich was about the shortest journey possible to bag a Munro, and has to be done as a stand-alone in any case, so I reckoned it was an apt choice for winter. To make it a bit more interesting than the famed Loch Sloy service route, I decided to do it this way round, but straight up and down no messing. I did not want a repeat of 'Easily my hardest experience in the mountains' from last winter, as there promised to be similar visibility issues. That said, I might not even have got there! Coming over the M74 in the late evening of Saturday 14th January around Cairn Lodge a heavy snow storm hit, forcing traffic down to 30mph with the lanes and edges of the motorway difficult to see, and one or two drivers even giving up (or their cars giving up) and pulling in. However, I got through, and with the free coffee given to me at Hamilton Services by a friendly MacDs manager, I decided once again that things boded well enough, and that I was perhaps meant to get up there to the mountains.
- The ascent looks picturesque but is very soggy.
- Looking back to Ardlui by Lomond.
- The snowline is coming.
- The 'Little Hills' so-called, and Vorlich's summit visible for now.
A sign on an underpass of the railway near Ardlui says 'Ben Vorlich next underpass', which was extremely helpful or I might well have taken it (looking far more inviting) and managed to have gone wrong already. Number 85 is the magic number. I'm not sure if the way up this way is any more exciting than the Loch Sloy way, but you do get a view of the so-called Little Hills, which can be descended down to make things more of a round trip, but was an option I roundly ruled out so as not to fall off some crags in the cloud again (Beinn Chabhair a year ago). A soggy plod up an obvious if lousy path brought me to the snowline, and then a brief steepening to the col below Stob nan Coinnich Bhacain on Vorlich's north flank.A young couple passed me on the way up, who quite apart from being very fit (I like to think I'm no slouch myself at 55) must have really known their stuff. They disappeared rapidly into the cloud and I was never even to see any sign of their footprints. If there was a proper line up this north ridge, I never found it. Even in poor visibility in a snow-slog, though, it holds little danger as long as you're roughly on a compass bearing and it's mind over matter stuff, you will get there. I was nevertheless relieved to hit the north top, which was after all part of the point of going this way (yep, I'm still contemplating trying to bag all the tops). My morale had taken another knock by the apparent death of my camera, and I contemplated turning back, but then decided how silly I would only end driving all the way home feeling crapper than ever. I thought, 'okay, no photo-evidence, this one is just between you and me, then, Vorlich'.
- Visibility disappeared as did any sign of path.
- I was pleased to see the north top (photo actually taken on way back after camera had resurrected).
- Summit photo was only possible courtesy of Hannah and James. 3,094 feet (943m).
Once on the summit ridge, the going was easier, although not a damn thing to be seen really. However, there were now people (who had come up from Loch Sloy) - always a morale booster, unless perhaps you're savouring a solitary experience on a beautifullly warm birdsong summer's day, which this was not. The first I came across were another young couple, and we were delighted to provide photographic services for each other at the summit before we got too cold. At this point, I thought my camera was not only dead but lost too, not being in its allotted pocket. Well, I was going back the same way, but reckoned my chances of spotting its 10x10cm in X1,000 square metres of snow were slim. Only when fishing out my glasses to take their photo did I discover I still had my own camera. Yay!The day was getting better and better, and Hannah and James promised to send my summit photo through (taken on their camera) in email. Small things, maybe, but I like to think I was getting my reward for showing a bit of spirit. I could so easily have been sitting at home at that very moment, contemplating in warmth and comfort my failure to attempt any winter Munros this year. Some Alpinist that would have made me. Then, would you know it, my camera decided to revive for a trig point photo. The cold plays havoc with the charge, James had explained. I did not know that; amazing what you learn if you just shift and get out there. Other people emerged out of the clag, a collection of chapped-faced and winded-looking guys this time. "Where's the summit?" When somebody asks you that, you do feel like an Alpinist.
- The trig point for good measure (941m) not the true summit.
- I emerge into visibility on the descent.
- Such splendour almost tempted me with Stob nan Coinnich Bhacain down there.
The descent was straight-forward - almost all of it - and visibility came a little sooner than expected, although still I encountered no sign of an established line down this north ridge. Well, I expect in summer you'd find intermittent stony-muddy clues to it. Stob nan Coinnich Bhacain is a peak of Graham height, but lacking Graham status because I guess it is too much part of Ben Vorlich. Therefore, I thought why bother, which is perhaps a poor attitude. It really looked rather nice and would have added little time onto the overall walk. Job was done - Munro number 40 for me - but I managed one little bit of farce to finish with. With inexplicably poor map-reading (or just lack of looking at it, I can't remember now), I seemed to choose the wrong mud-trail on the lower slopes, which crossed to obviously the wrong side of the burn and onto dubious farm tracks which were taking me away from Ardlui.Rather than have an extra half mile or so, I thought to hell with it and got myself onto the railway line itself intending to follow it into the station and out to my car. A nice fella saw me walking by (on the track) and asked me to pick up a couple of ornamental stones that his granddaughter had thrown out there the other day, and moreover invited me to climb into his garden and get out that way bearing in mind 'those are live rails'. He even invited me in for a cup of tea, which maybe I should have accepted (who knows how more surreal and informative the day could have got), but I was keen to sort out my stuff in my car before it got dark and find a hotel for a meal (which turned out to be 'The Real Food Cafe' at Tyndrum - excellent! - having encountered a closed Crianlarich Hotel and its local the Rod and Reel which was not serving food).
- Think that was looking west to Beinn Damhain (a Graham).
- Back down from the snow we go.
- Back successfully before dark (but flirtation with railway line to come).
PS When I say Graham, clearly I mean 'Fiona'! I haven't quite caught up with that one yet.This walk was followed by 'Buachaille Etive Mor in the Serious Midwinter'
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=116377&p=478902#p478902
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The English Alpinist
- Mountain Walker
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- Posts: 383
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Munros:73 Corbetts:13
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Fionas:31 Donalds:28+16
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Sub 2000:2 Hewitts:136
- Wainwrights:214
- Joined: Oct 27, 2015
- Location: Lancashire England.
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