Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidh
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:06 amAfter what seems like three years of miserable weather (well, you get what I'm saying), the forecasters all appeared to agree on good weather for Friday. There was no way I was going to spend it sitting in the office, so Thursday night I made sure boots, rucksack, poles etc were all in the back of the car and I picked half a dozen routes within an hours drive of home. Friday morning and I checked current weather reports and webcams to see where the best weather was happening - happily Glencoe looked good, and since top of my list was Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidh, I jumped in the car, pointed it North West and pushed the go pedal. Well, not quite actually - I stupidly checked my email one last time and then got stuck for the next two hours dealing with some work related nonsense that I really should have had the good sense to ignore.
So, two hours later I jumped in the car, pointed it North West and pushed the go pedal.
Toyota Prius - a car that needs to be banned for the effect it seems to have on it's operators. Without exception, every Prius driver I have seen has obviously decided that it doesn't matter how bad their driving, how erratic, as long as they drive really slowly.
A little under and hour later and I was ambling past Bridge of Orchy Station. Perfect light, nice temperature with a 10 - 15mph wind. I was looking forward to this. As to the route, just the normal one: straight up to the bealach, turn left and do a little loop round Beinn an Dothaidh, back to the bealach and up and down Beinn Dorain.
One weird thing though, normally my in-built compass is pretty decent - for the most part I know roughly what direction is what without the need of a compass, Not to the accuracy of individual degrees or anything, but N, NE, E, SE, S etc. Plus in a good year I drive past these hills maybe twenty or thirty times, I've looked at the maps in detail, I've flown about the area looking down several times in the past few years, but for some reason my internal compass had tuned 90 degrees clockwise and I found it slightly worrying that the sun was trying to go down in the South. After a while I checked my compass and my map and I could see exactly what direction was what, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong. Never had that before - it's a very weird feeling.
Got back to the car 6 hours later. Only met two other couples on the hills all day, one couple at the top of both summits and then another couple of guys just going for a stroll as I was heading down. I thought it would be much busier given the weather. I did see a silhouette near the summit of Beinn an Dothaidh as I was heading down at the end of the day, but it seemed to be heading down to the East (or North in my wonky head of the day)
Anyway, some piccies:
The only reason I took this picture was for the trees in the foreground. Twenty years ago I took a gap year between school and college (because I didn't apply in time) and instead of doing the normal exciting things like travels to far off exotic lands, I got a job working for Scottish Woodlands, mainly planting and fertilising up and down the West. During that time I planted a large portion of those trees shown in the foreground of this picture.
So, two hours later I jumped in the car, pointed it North West and pushed the go pedal.
Toyota Prius - a car that needs to be banned for the effect it seems to have on it's operators. Without exception, every Prius driver I have seen has obviously decided that it doesn't matter how bad their driving, how erratic, as long as they drive really slowly.
A little under and hour later and I was ambling past Bridge of Orchy Station. Perfect light, nice temperature with a 10 - 15mph wind. I was looking forward to this. As to the route, just the normal one: straight up to the bealach, turn left and do a little loop round Beinn an Dothaidh, back to the bealach and up and down Beinn Dorain.
One weird thing though, normally my in-built compass is pretty decent - for the most part I know roughly what direction is what without the need of a compass, Not to the accuracy of individual degrees or anything, but N, NE, E, SE, S etc. Plus in a good year I drive past these hills maybe twenty or thirty times, I've looked at the maps in detail, I've flown about the area looking down several times in the past few years, but for some reason my internal compass had tuned 90 degrees clockwise and I found it slightly worrying that the sun was trying to go down in the South. After a while I checked my compass and my map and I could see exactly what direction was what, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong. Never had that before - it's a very weird feeling.
Got back to the car 6 hours later. Only met two other couples on the hills all day, one couple at the top of both summits and then another couple of guys just going for a stroll as I was heading down. I thought it would be much busier given the weather. I did see a silhouette near the summit of Beinn an Dothaidh as I was heading down at the end of the day, but it seemed to be heading down to the East (or North in my wonky head of the day)
Anyway, some piccies:
The only reason I took this picture was for the trees in the foreground. Twenty years ago I took a gap year between school and college (because I didn't apply in time) and instead of doing the normal exciting things like travels to far off exotic lands, I got a job working for Scottish Woodlands, mainly planting and fertilising up and down the West. During that time I planted a large portion of those trees shown in the foreground of this picture.
