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Of all the Grahams, these two are among my very favourite, particularly when approached along Glen Pean. An Stac is just a delightful mountain, shapely, craggy and situated in the middle of one of the best parts of Scotland. They've been on my mind for a while now, just waiting for an adequate enough weekend to get in and do them.
With none of the recent gales supposed to be happening this weekend, with minimal snow and some above average temperatures it seemed a useful opportunity to load up the big packs and set off to Glen Pean. We headed up on Thursday night - firm promises - Ha! - that the rain was going to stop by 7pm. We drove through Fort William at 7...still raining. We drove along Loch Arkaig at 8...still raining and with some wonderfully challenging shrouds of mist that would suddenly come up over the road and obscure the way ahead - as if that road isn't challenging enough at the best of times. At least it wasn't icy... We pulled into the parking area before Strachan at maybe 8.30 and took some time to sort the bags out before setting off by head torch for Glen Pean bothy. No other cars in the parking area, so we were expecting an empty house...
Planned route
What we ended up doing
The rain did go off as we walked the 6k through the trees, along good track. Passing the deer feeding station, millions of eyes looked up at us from the side of the road, glittering in our head lights. On through the mire of the last few hundred years to the bothy and yep, we had it to ourselves. The MO has been busy with renovations inside and apparently built a composting toilet outside...however we found in the morning, when we could see, that the winter storms had wrecked that. We settled down for the night - too late to take advantage of the logs and kindling left by the fire. The bothy has very adventurous mice - we could hear it/them come out after we'd put the lights out and at several points in the night they were up on the sleeping platform behind our heads...Allison thought she heard one on the sleeping bag; I was a little concerned one was going to crawl inside. I don't mind mice much, but that's a little close
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Al, on Flickr
We were not up very early in the morning, shame
...Justified by the late arrival the previous night and by the relatively modest goals of the weekend...just two Grahams. And we're still trying out the 16:8 fasting thing, so we ended up not leaving until we'd had breakfast at 10am. Quite a nice morning, misty but promise of sun by the looks of things. The walk along Glen Pean is an excellent outing, but prepare for it being wet underfoot. There's an ATV track that heads towards Lochan Leum an t-Saigairt with a couple of places that might involve a bit of a wade, then a crossing of the outflow to the east of the lochan...ankle deep last time we were here, a bit deeper today. I went across relatively unscathed in boots and gaiters, Allison stripped off. Then it's a high path up the hillside along the lochan, not the place to slip and fall, especially with a full pack. Then you enter a narrow V-shaped part of the valley with lots of rock fall littering the bottom...not reallythe place to camp. There's a notice there, on a proper metal pole, that says...absolutely nothing. We saw a white-tailed eagle flap majestically from one side to a tree, then a few minutes later fly back over to the other side, lost in the rock slabs. That's the closest I've seen a white tail. Enormous. Maybe the sign said "don't feed the eagle" originally...
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
Eventually you reach Oban Bothy, inevitably locked anytime we've been by. We sat outside in the sun having a bag of crisps. No wind at all, a really unseasonably mild mid-February day. We continued on into Gleann Taodhail aiming for the spot we'd used previously - there really aren't camping options higher up the glen. By the time we'd put the tent up it was after 3pm and we asked ourselves if there was really time to go up Meith Bheinn today...not really - we reckoned it would be three and a half to four hours and we didn't have that much light...these are not really the kind of mountains to be bumbling about by head torch on if you can help it. Of course if we'd started off a bit earlier we'd have had plenty time, but sometimes you just need to enjoy the day. So we sat by the tent in the sun, with the river splashing beside and did just that.
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
When I'd drawn up the route for the weekend, I'd intended to do Meith Bheinn then An Stac by means of the west ridge and head off to the east, something that avoids all the crags and takes you over Cnoc Gorm to the stalkers path for Sgurr nan Coireachan - we used that approach last time round and it's easy. However, there was the disadvantage of lugging our packs up An Stac if we did that - easier to just leave the tent up and carry what we needed then return the way we'd walked in. Inefficient but who's counting... So on Saturday morning we loped out of the tent about 9am, had a look up at the sky which was darkening from the south west and set off for Meath Bheinn. Up the path first, then a river crossing (easy) and up into the wide coire following deer tracks until you arrive at the NE shoulder of Meith Bheinn which takes you, over many ups and downs, to the summit eventually. Although the weather wasn't wonderful, it was dry and clear - well there was low cloud over the surrounding hills, but we weren't walking through clag.
An Stac
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
Meith Bheinn
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
We took the same route down, then crossed the river again and set off up An Stac. The bealach between these two drops to around 190m, so there's a lot of re-ascent. Going up this way is fine - again good deer tracks take you around the craggy bits - it's coming down - particularly in restricted visibility - that is challenging here. There was a complete absence of snow on either hill- well except for an odd tiny patch - and even on the higher surrounding hills there didn't look to be any significant snow left. Didn't need to bring the axes with us this weekend...
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Al, on Flickr
Meith Bheinn from An Stac
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Al, on Flickr
The threatened rain did start as we got about half way up An Stac, desultory at first but heavy when we were at the summit. With the typical timing of rain on mountains. We followed our up route on the way down quite successfully and regained the path back down the glen to be re-united with our tent. Had a dry night despite the rain.
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
In the morning we had low mist and warmth, intermittent sun and showers as we walked back along Glen Pean. Once again we just took our time, ambling along. We saw a white tail again, higher up flying off the crags of Carn Mor nearer the bothy. W noticed that someone had been attempting repairs on the composting toilet in our absence - from the bothy book this turned out to have been Gaz, whose name I kept seeing in bothy books when I did the CWT last winter. Many stags by the trackside as we returned to the car, many more congregating along the Loch Arkaig road too. Even though there's no real need for me to came back to Glen Pean, I think it will be somewhere worth another visit in future...
Misty morning
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Al, on Flickr
Notice
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Al, on Flickr
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Al, on Flickr
Absence of snow on the big hills
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Al, on Flickr
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