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Our few remaining Corbetts are all miles away, so despite a great forecast, for various reasons, we decided to enjoy the thrill of a new hill - but rather more locally. So the Fiona Beinn Bhalgairean was chosen - at least partly so as to include a fish supper on the way home at the Real Food Café, Tyndrum - surely the finest anywhere, especially if you are GF like me!
Preparation, as usual, involved poring over maps, and reading other people's reports (thank you). I don't know about others, but for me this is one of the joys of hill-walking, and certainly adds to the anticipation.
I didn't set out to do a report, and so the photos are nothing to shout about, but I thought I would do a short post, just for the benefit of anyone else tackling this hill - things seem to have changed a lot since Graeme D did it in 2016.
As others have mentioned, it is possible to park near Succoth Lodge, right by the bridge over the Eas a' Ghaill at NN206265. The track is quite rocky from the road to here, but it does save nearly 4km of rough walking.
There are no gates that we could see (we have form for being locked behind a gate - on Christmas Day of all days!). We met a local lady when we got back down who confirmed that it was fine to park here.
Both tracks beyond where we parked (a third one, uphill, just loops back to the way in) say "No Access for Unauthorised Vehicles".
Boots on, we set off beside the water, soon passing under a railway bridge, doubling back to the right for a while, then left again, and steadily uphill. After passing under the pylons we came to a four-way junction after 3.6km of walking. (It looks more like three ways, as the fourth is slightly further on). Here Graeme D (and others) found a track going straight uphill, a good shortcut, but the trees have now engulfed it. No problem - stay on the track for a short distance, then take a sharp left, just before the area marked as "Workings" on the latest OS map. This is where the fun begins! Previous reports - and our map - show a firebreak through the trees a bit further beyond this point. There is the beginnings of a track, but it peters out very quickly. No sign of any break in the trees!
We could see open hill beyond the forest, but the trees were impenetrable - lots of wind-blown trunks. So we carried on up the track. Eventually the older trees thinned out, ending with a few gnarled, broken stumps. An area of new planting here is enclosed by a fence, and at least the trees were small. 20 minutes of battling - and crossing a small broken down fence - allowed us to gain the open hillside. DON'T DO THIS! SEE DOWN ROUTE/PICTURES.
We still had a deer fence to negotiate. Subsequent research indicates that there is a gate, but well off our route - we certainly didn't see one. It is high, but very sturdy, and we managed to climb it with the aid of one of its main supports. (Where it crosses a stream, it is also possible to get underneath - at least if it is as dry as Saturday was!).
Summit at last, with great views of the Ben Lui groups, and also Ben Cruachan.
- Summit view of Ben Cruachan Range
Our return route is the more southerly one on the map. From near the summit we could see a much more thinly-planted area. We still had to re-cross the deer fence, but eventually picked up a faint trod which led down to a gate. The gate once had a ladder type style, but as there is now no gate at all, it wasn't needed. This leads straight down to a much older, grassy track, which hasn't been excessively widened like the rest of the route.
- Looking back up the grassy track, with Beinn Bhalgairean behind.
- Looking back down the grassy track the way we had come, with Meall nan Gabhar looking impressive
This quickly leads back to the route of ascent - so this would have been a much easier way up the hill.
It is amazing how quickly things change - or perhaps how much we change things would be more accurate. We have been walking in Scotland for over 25 years now, and problems with access, hydro, forestry, etc are much more common than they used to be. I know various campaigns have tried to limit the proliferation of tracks, but they haven't really succeeded. Still once you escape the tracks and get out on the hill, the landscape is not much different to how it would have been in Sir Hugh Munro's day.
