by Pedro2703 » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:47 pm
Date walked: 01/09/2013
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Early start to climb Ben More near Crianlarich. A bit windy when leaving the house but nothing to be concerned about. Arrived at the lay by at half eight and walking by quarter to nine. Spotted the small wooden sign at the road side indicating the path up from the main road to a farm track and followed this up to a gate and access to the hill. Now raining and being driven by a strengthening wind. Strange that there is no clear path at the start of the climb but as we climbed a well worn path was evident. We just picked a line and headed up and man was the wind strengthening with low cloud.
The climb to the summit of Ben More was one of my roughest days on the hills and completely blown off our feet on many occasions and visibility was zero. We tried to get a break from the wind behind some big rocks but not much shelter. After what seemed like an eternity we reached the cairn and trig point and could hardly see in front of us. We returned on the same path we came up on and the decent was tricky and quite hard because it was extremely hard to stand up in the wind and rain. On returning to the car I felt like I had been out all day when in fact it had only been a few hours, the weather really was harsh.
Having said that, it was still good to be out even without views. As a fellow walker commented to me recently when walking in heavy rain in the French Alps...'that's nature'.