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It's pretty obvious why I chose the title this week, given the weather! An old favourite from 1978, The Human League when they were still quite an experimental outfit.
I don't know about being boiled, but we were certainly baked alive on Friday. Really this kind of weather is just too hot for me, particularly when you are out for 10 hours in it, with less water than you need too. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Normally we head off at 4 on Thursday afternoon, but this Thursday was my boy's birthday, so we'd arranged to meet up for a meal in Red Onion in Glasgow, which was very pleasant. Being unable to drive into Glasgow city centre since the LEZ came into force, I was chauffeured by my wife, which made a pleasant change. The rare evening out did mean that I'd be restricted in how far away we could go for the weekend, hence I'd chosen the three Creran Grahams shining like a red beacon on my Grahams map. I remembered these as being quite a long day and therefore suggested to Allison that we head off when I got home on Thursday night, rather than leaving on the Friday morning as we might normally do in such circumstances. So when I got home around 8.15 it was immediately out into the packed car and off to pick up Allison. One of the great things about this time of year is the lack of darkness til very late on, so we were able to motor up in good light and with quiet roads, rather than having to get up really early on Friday morning.
I reckoned we could pitch in the Ben Lui car park at Glen Lochy, which surprisingly had only one van within. I noted a new signboard since we were last there a few months back, with parking charges and overnight parking not permitted. They haven't actually got round to putting in a ticket machine yet, so we chose to ignore the sign, but one less option for camping in future. Had a quiet night until walkers started coming along the path to head up Lui at about 7.30. We packed up and headed along to Balcardine, where one takes the little road going south east to Bonawe. There's a farm track heading up towards Beinn Bhreac: there's parking for one car just opposite this. It was already very hot, not even 10am yet, the sky clear blue without a single cloud. Allison opted for shorts and a vest top; I, being wary, opted to be covered up as the clegs were milling around us as we left the car.
A little way up the track I remembered that tickets for PJ Harvey were going on sale at 10am - it was now 10.15, but I had good signal and reckoned I should be OK - she is doing 2 nights at the Barras. The Monday show was sold out already and there were only a few Tuesday tickets left...then my phone or the website started acting up and I managed to lose the ticket I thought I'd secured, when I checked in again the Tuesday was sold out too on Ticketmaster. Fortunately the other selling agent still had some left, so I managed to complete the transaction and hurried off after Allison who'd walked on as the air around me had been turning rather blue
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Al, on Flickr
Beinn Bhreac - the actual summit is on the far right of the picture
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Al, on Flickr
Back to the matter in hand then - getting these hills done. The track continues, going from a bulldozed gravelly one to an ATV grassy one, normally boggy in places, but that isn't an issue at the moment. Eventually it Peters out, there's a fence to cross and then it's a case of aim for the large summit cairn on Beinn Bhreac. Not the actual summit - that's the 726m point more than a mile away, but we stopped for lunch anyway and enjoyed the fine views over to Cruachan. From the true summit we cut down into the valley where we attempted to get some water from the "stream" there - whilst there was a flow, it had a distinct tang of deer and Allison wasn't especially keen to drink from it. I reckoned that hydration was more important than taste and topped up, as I knew we probably wouldn't get many more opportunities today.
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Al, on Flickr
Heading to Morlugainn
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Al, on Flickr
Reaching the summit of Beinn Morlugainn we could see our third hill, the confusingly named Beinn Mheadhonach (the "middle hill") away off ahead, with a jumble of lower hills to cross to reach it. A steep descent towards a rickety old deer fence which would be awkward to climb as the posts are so infirm - fortunately there's a broken section a bit to the east which permits walking across. When we were here before we climbed over all the tops between Morlugainn and Mheadhonach but given the heat today, any unnecessary ascent was ruled out. We skirted round Meall Dearg using deer paths then followed our noses across the others to eventually arrive in sight of Lochan Bealach Carra. It's a steep climb of almost 250m from here up to Mheadhonach, utilising a rocky gully. Allison was really struggling with the heat now, and probably also lack of water. Sympathetically, I headed up to the summit and sat waiting for her there. It was now 5pm and I reckoned we still had at least 2 hours more to go before we'd be back at the car.
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Al, on Flickr
The darkish outline of Mheadhonach
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Al, on Flickr
Starav
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Al, on Flickr
Steep side of Mheadhonach
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
The route we'd taken off Mheadhonach would take us down the SW shoulder and down to the road, through a farm. I hadn't much recollection of this other than having to walk a couple of km back up the road from our first visit. When we got to the 387m hummock we managed to lose sight of each other - I was descending along the line I had intended but Allison, who had her map but didn't have my route was going off at some other tangent. Fortunately there was phone signal and we managed to locate each other that way (once she'd remembered to take Airplane Mode off). I think her brain was a bit fried by this time and although I described where I was, she struggled to compute. I remembered we had What Three Words app and tried to use that, but we've not actually used that feature to locate each other before and she was getting more and more frustrated - eventually we did meet up and resolved to try out the WTW app tomorrow.
C56A9718-FABC-435A-8B15-81E542845038_1_201_a by
Al, on Flickr
A steepish descent down a (dried up) stream then into a head high forest of bracken before reaching the fields of Blarcreen Farm and then the road. We were both pretty exhausted by this time - it was fast approaching 8pm. I had intended to drive up to Glencoe, with the idea of doing Bidean nam Bian and Tops on Saturday, but it would have been foolish to try and drive another 40-odd miles before we'd even had a chance to eat. We could see dark clouds coming towards us from the south, along with the occasional rumble of thunder and I decided `I'd look and see if there was somewhere to camp on the hillside by the car, so that we could get the tent pitched before any downpour arrived. Fortunately there was a flattish spot a bit above where the car was parked, with enough exposure to the wind to reduce the midge issue. Pitched and fed, we both felt a little better, although it was far too hot overnight to be able to get any sleep.
Sea of ferns
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
In the morning I didn't feel like driving up to Glencoe, particularly if there was a risk of thunderstorms: the highest mountain in Glencoe is probably not the place you want to be when there's lightning around. I thought about doing these three Grahams again - it's rare that you can get a clutch of three Grahams in one circuit and it would be a boost for R3. However, how to sell the idea to Allison, who hadn't really enjoyed her round yesterday, that we were maybe going to do it all again? I must have persuasive powers, because she put up much less fight than I expected, after an intial "no, absolutely not". As an added bonus, I suggested we could do the circuit anticlockwise this time, with a different route up Mheadhonach - makes all the difference
I'd noticed on the aerial map that there was a bridge at the NW shoulder of Mheadhonach and reckoned there might be some track up from there. We began by following the track up Beinn Bhreac that we'd started on yesterday, then followed the fence line NE - there are helpful animal tracks - before dropping down towards the bridge through a gate. A nice sturdy bridge - with almost no water running under it today. We could see an ATV track heading up the initial slopes of Mheadhonach although trying to actually find it amongst the foliage when we arrived at it was more difficult. We walked over heather and tussocks which petered out as we gained height, and had a more pleasant arrival at the summit of Mheadhonach than the day before. I wondered if anyone else had been at this same summit twice within 24 hours...
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Al, on Flickr
Follow the fence - Mheadhonach on the R
FEE789F2-595C-40CF-9308-1F1AA90783D5_1_201_a by
Al, on Flickr
CCF87104-82A7-4669-9292-11E82F9399EC_1_201_a by
Al, on Flickr
21CABADF-0C6C-4D6B-8ED7-43A15C5D77DE_1_201_a by
Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
From here we had a reversal of yesterday's route - down the steep gully towards Lochan Bealach Carra, where we paused for lunch and watched the deer below; over and round the smaller hills and up the steep slope to Morlugainn. We kept our promise from the day before and worked out how to ue What Three Words to find each other (again dependant on there being phone signal) As we were walking round the sky steadily darkened behind us, and as we began ascending Morlugainn the rain started to fall in large, refreshing drops. It only lasted for 10 minutes at the most and after a short time you wouldn't have known it had been raining at all - either the ground soaked it all up or the heat evaporated it. From the 726m summit of Beinn Bhreac we got good views out to Loch Linnhe and of Castle Stalker, before we went back over the remainder of Beinn Bhreac and picked up the path out. Although it hadn't been as hot today and although the route was a couple of km shorter, it had still taken nine and a half hours to go round the circuit. I'd say the second route was probably my preferred route to take, although that might have been because we weren't as cooked by the sun whilst walking it.
Down to Lochan Bealach Carra
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Al, on Flickr
Rain clouds following us
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Al, on Flickr
Real water from the sky!
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Al, on Flickr
Beinn Bhreac/Mam Hael
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Al, on Flickr
8C0BA647-342F-4B02-AAF7-DC4B4707EB56_1_201_a by
Al, on Flickr
Parking and camping
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Al, on Flickr
Great to get 6 Grahams done in two walks! We'd left the tent up whilst we were away and returned to it to have our tea. The rain, with impeccable timing, began in earnest while I was sitting outside the tent cooking - I braved it until I'd got the Huel prepared then retreated indoors to listen to the unusual (in recent weeks anyway) sound of rain on the tent. I'd also been keeping an eye on the Norway-Scotland score and had to switch on the radio for the 6 minutes of extra time after Scotland had somewhat astonishingly come back from one nil down to win the match in the last few minutes.
Whether it was the football victory or just getting down to my last 6 Grahams, I stupidly had a bit too much whisky and had something of a hangover when I got up. We'd still intended to do the Tops on Bidean, but since I wasn't feeling that hot and since there were strong winds forecast, we opted for an alternative. Allison still needs the 5 Munros around Beinn Dòrain and it seemed a good option to do Dòrain and Dòthaidh, which were kinda on the way home and could be done more easily with a hangover than the two tops on Beinn Fhada. We arrived at Bridge of Orchy before 10, parked in the walkers car park which wasn't that busy, and set off into the coire. We've done these hills twice (plus one failed attempt) from here and on each occasion the coire has been full of snow - it seemed odd to be walking into the same place in blistering sun, with not a trace of the white stuff around. As we walked, I began to feel a bit better, particularly when the cool breeze ruffled me. A sheep, with flapping fleece climbed up onto a rock and stood like a woolly prophet. By the time we arrived at the bealach I was feeling reasonable: - after deciding to climb Dòrain first, we stopped by the lochan beside the path and had lunch. Onwards and upwards to the summit: hazy views of the surrounding mountains and interesting clouds to take our attention.
D8B9F15E-EF09-493C-B85D-ACAF7B964D72_1_201_a by
Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
Summit Dòrain
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
We descended back to the bealach and took the path up to Dòthaidh - twice before we'd taken a steep line up due north from the cairn, not noticing the path which would have been under snow, but today we could see it and did use it. Took the opportunity to top up water from the spring that runs down the centre of Coire Reidh and enjoyed more blue hazy views from the summit. The sun, which had been in and out all day, shone more persistently on our descent and I felt my face starting to slowly burn.
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
A quieter than expected drive down the road finished off what on the whole had been a profitable weekend, with the exception of my overindulgence on Saturday night.
