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The weather forecast for the day was looking excellent in Glen Etive, and our plan was to try to get a good photo of a winter sunset on top of a Munro - Sgurr na h-Ulaidh (pronounced sgur na hully from what I understand
) To do this we thought we'd start out at around lunch time, figuring out we would reach the top around 3.30 - 4pm just in time for a glorious sunset! Well that was the plan!
We started at around 12.30 from the forest in Glen Etive (142485) where there was a small area to park your car. The weather wasn't looking the way the forecast had planned (often the case!) but no matter...there was always hope!
The first part of the walk was following the forest road...be wary here as large machinery is in constant use cutting down the trees. (Follow the track to the right over the bridge)
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- Start of walk
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- Forest Track
The track opens up into where the main logging was going on, and all the trunks were piled up. Keep to the right of this and carry on up the track, following the edge of the forest.
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- Logging Area
Eventually after 20 mins or so following this track a small cairn on the track marks the path to the exit of the forest.
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- Small cairn
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- Path to edge of forest
At this point there was also a fallen down tree, but the path forward was easily found. Another 10 or 15 mins walking along this path takes you out to edge of the forest. At around 250m we were starting to hit the cloud level.
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- Edge of forest
A good (but muddy) track marks the way up to the Bealach (118514)
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- Track up to Bealach
It took about 2.5hrs to reach the bealach (627m) with steady easy climbing. The views were still disappointing - we couldnt see the mountain we were climbing, and we couldnt see any chance of the cloud breaking. At this point our only hope was a cloud inversion (I know....!) The light was going, so we changed our goal, to just get to the top and forget about any good photography! At this point the climbing got ....more interesting! The route up got more steep as expected, and the snow from 600m made it quite slippy as it hadnt frozen.
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- The climb up
We followed a broken fence up the main ridge for most of the way. There were several sections which required some basic scrambling and wasn't looking forward to coming back this way in the dark!
Eventually got to the top at 3.30pm and you guessed it there was no cloud inversion (wishful thinking
)
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- Top of Munro
Given that the sun was setting and the route was tricky on the way back we didnt hang around much! We started our decent after a quick sarny and some hot chocolate....and with frozen fingers headed back down again. Just had time to take a shot of the cairn with my DSLR..
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- Sgurr na h-Ulaidh Cairn
On the way down...u guessed it...the weather started to change and the clouds were breaking up!
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- Route back to Bealach
We could still see our route back...just, but I wanted to stop back at the bealach and take a shot while I could.
So in the knowledge that we had successfully cleared all the difficult terrain, we set up tripods from there to take what was left of the failing light.
Below is my alternative view of Loch Etive from this point!
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- Alternative Sunset View of Glen Etive
We kept our torches off using the starlight as by now it was quite a clear sky! Eventually after numerous stumbles, we resorted to switching them on. Obviously we lost the track back to the forest, but we were fortunate enough to remember the altitude the path was at at the edge of the forest. We were off by about 100m or so, as we had naturally kept higher than we needed to in our descent. Anyway, once we found the track again in the woods, it was another 1/2hr back to the car through the forest (don't mention blair witch!) A good walk all round and good to come off the hill in the dark. Shame about the lack of cloud inversion, but its a bit like chasing the end of the rainbow to predict when that will happen!
