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The few days starting on Sunday 7 Jan 2024 was a period where high pressure sat over Scotland. The weather was mainly dry and sunny, low winds but very cold. Ideal winter conditions!
I picked these two Munros as they weren’t excessive in distance, given sunset was at around 3.30pm. Also the parking was on a main road, so no driving down icy little lanes.
I passed under the railway line and up onto the boggy moorland, except it was dry although covered in thick ice runnels all over the path. It wasn’t too bad on the way up as you could keep dodging the icy bits and the ground was mainly free of snow. Eventually I reached a large boulder next to the path just before the ground steepened up the headwall at the back of Coire an Dothaidh, and this seemed to be a good place to get my crampons on and get my ice axe off my rucksack.
The steep corrie headwall leading up to the 744 meter bealach required care, being a mixture of rocky path, ice runnels and snow slopes. The snow slopes, with plenty of footprints in place, seemed to be the quickest way up. On reaching the bealach I decided to head up Beinn Dorain first as that was the longer of the two ascents, then I could judge on returning to the bealach whether I had enough time to go up Beinn an Dothaidh too. It looked like that was the way others did it too, as I saw at least four other singles or doubles doing it that way.
- Bealach 744 mtrs looking east
Once I left the bealach the snow was lovely, being firm with that great crunchy sound underfoot. The first bit was the steepest part on this ridge, but my crampons bit firmly into the snow each step. I was using the axe in the uphill hand and a single pole in the other hand, which worked fine.
The views started opening up and the blue sky and snow covered mountains complemented each other beautifully.
- Telephoto of Ben Nevis 25 miles away
- Loch Lyon to the east
I passes the Englishman’s cairn and kept going to the true Scottish summit where the views were sensational in all directions. There was a nice snow ledge next to the cairn where I sat and munched my food, in between taking photos. It was so calm and warm in the sun, amazing!
- Lunchtime on summit of Beinn Dorain
On the way down the ridge I noted that there were a few places where a slip could be tricky if you couldn’t self-arrest quickly, with some big drops mainly down the east side of the ridge. I carefully made my way back to the bealach and decided to continue up the other Munro. I reckoned I had enough daylight to do the summit, return to the bealach and get down the corrie headwall before the sun set.
- Mountains north east of Beinn Dorain
There were several ways up the bowl leading to the main eastern summit. In the interests of time I immediately left the main summit and headed across to the western top from where I had wonderful views down to Loch Tulla and many mountains beyond towards Glencoe. There were a couple of ice climbers there coiling up their ropes after finishing an ice climb down below. I headed down to try and beat the sunset clock.
- Loch Tulla from Beinn an Dothaidh
- North over Rannoch Moor from Beinn an Dothaidh, with inversion starting up
The sun set soon after I got past the bottom of the corrie headwall, but there was still reasonable light for a time, while I made my way down the icy bog. I had one slip when I didn’t see some ice after I had removed my crampons, but the ground was level so no harm done. The final challenge came when I reached the underpass under the railway, as the stairway was covered in thick ice. I walked up it OK earlier, but it looked dodgy for a descent when I was tired. I took great care and didn’t slip, so ended a great day on the wintery hills.
