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Yesterday saw me travelling to Inverarnan on the Citylink coach with two mates to climb our first Munro of the year, Beinn Chabhair. The climb itself had three distinctive stages: a very steep climb from the Beinglas campsite up through the clouds and past the Grey Mare's Tail waterfall to the moor, a trudge through
incredibly boggy ground up to Lochan Beinn Chabhair and a final climb up into a second layer of cloud before traversing the knobbly ridge to the summit. All of this took four hours of pain, which was fairly worrying for me as I usually find the ascent to be the easier half for some reason! True to form I struggled much more than the other two on the descent, although we made it back down in just over three hours as the sun finally came out in Inverarnan. In a way it was a bad combination weather-wise, as the ridiculous rainfall of Friday night and Saturday left the moorland resembling Rannoch Moor on a bad day, while Sunday itself was warm and muggy without featuring any prolonged sunshine or views!
Still, reaching my first Munro summit of the Crianlarich hills made for a good day, and while I was far too knackered to contemplate a pint in the Drovers Inn, the Highlander Burger was top notch.
- The Grey Mare's Tail.
- A very misty-looking upper section of the falls.
- Eventually a pylon appeared out of the mist.
- The closest thing to an inversion I've ever seen so far, although that's not saying much!
- This part was a real bog-fest, with many faint and equally wet paths beaten into the moorland on the North side of the Ben Glas Burn.
- The sight of the lochan was confirmation that we had gone too far East, as the Walkhighlands route had warned against.
- Luckily the path was visible to the North, climbing between two headlands on the ridge.
- The path climbed up to the right of this Am Bastier lookalike, heading East onto the knobbly ridge of Beinn Chabhair.
- A typical sight on the ridge, with large hillocks all around and a wee bit of up-and-down. We noticed an eery lack of wind on this walk, which was only obvious when we all stopped climbing and listened to the complete silence in all directions.
- Approaching the final climb.
- Nearly there...
- A very odd summit pose.
- The path to the abyss? (Not as bad as it looks)
- My old friend from Arran made a brief appearance.
- After a second traipse through the bog, the Drovers Inn appeared to spur us on into Glen Falloch.
- Zoom of Inverarnan.
- Ben Vorlich and the Little Hills, bringing back bad memories for me after a bad misjudgment or two!
- That stile has seen much better days. 'Beinn Dubhchraig bridge' springs to mind. :o
- Beinglas Campsite.
- A moody-looking Conic Hill and bonnie bonnie banks on the bus home.
