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Another stunning day up Glen Nevis, as part of a 2-day weather window, I decided to tackle the long walk-in to the 'two Binneins'. It ended up being an even longer day than I was expecting (9.5 h), involving a lot of pathless wandering and bog-trotting, even where there were supposed to be stalkers paths.
I also post the GPS track with hesitation and a health warning - I took two 'shortcuts' - one up the north side of Binnein Beag and another up the northern coire of Binnein Mor, both of which were very steep and although not dangerously so, were too much hard work and too slow going to be worth the short cut. Definitely park these in the 'not to be repeated/recommended' drawer. For Binnein Beag, I should have stayed on the path and circled around to the west and south to pick up the normal route, and for Binnein Mor it would have been better to do as I'd actually planned and contour round the northern coire at ~900 m and gain the north ridge from there, but I could see the more direct route was do-able and just kept edging upwards. Live and learn. I can also say that the stalkers path that is shown contouring round to the west into Coire Easain to the west of Binnein Mor peters out well before it is shown turning back down towards Glen Nevis. It would likely be a lot quicker, and half the distance, to take a direct route down the northwest ridge, although there are some small crags to negotiate lower down.
- The moon up over Glen Nevis on the walk-in. I had to extend the day by 6 km or so because my 3.5 tonne van won't go over the 3 tonne weight limit bridges, meaning I had to park at the Lower Falls. There are worse places to have to walk-in though...and it was a good warm-up in the morning
- The Steall ruins
- First view of the mountains - Binnein Beag (left) and Mor on the right
- A lot of pathless route-finding on this round - not so bad here
- Looking down Glen Nevis with An Gearanach on the left
- Looking up Glen Nevis towards the Grey Corries
- Approaching the summit of Binnein Beag, with the lochan between Sgurr Eilde Mor and Sgurr Eilde Beag
- Summit cairn of Binnein Beag with Binnein Mor in the background. I was shortly follwed to the summit by a couple just completing the Munros! Quite an honour to be there for the final one (and to take the photos for them) - many congratulations, apologies I didn't get your names!
- Looking west to An Gearanach/An Garbhanach, with Sgurr a' Mhaim in the background
- On the ascent up the northern coire of Binnein Mor, high enough for Binnein Beag to be looking, well, beag
- The gloriously airy summit ridgeline of Binnein Mor
- Binnein Mor summit
- Looking back north along the summit ridge
- Big landscape with Binnein Beag centre
- Layered mountainscape to the south and west
- On the descent off the ridge into Coire an Easain. The waterfall ladder looking spectacular, if it wasn't for the fact that I needed to get across and have now missed my window of opportunity
- After a long, squidgy tromp down the coire, and having missed my opportunity to cross higher up and traverse over to the wire bridge, I was resigned to getting my boots off to wade across the Water of Nevis, but it was shallow enough just above the confluence for an ungainly teeter across the boulders with dry feet intact
- The sun was setting while I was still well to the other side of Ben Nevis and I needed the head torch for the descent of the gorge and the road walk back to the Lower Falls car park
Overall, a bit more of an epic than I was bargaining for, but another classic autumn day in Glen Nevis.
