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We were up early this Saturday morning for the drive up to Loch Lomond, to drop our stuff off at our digs for the weekend and then get round to start our day in good time. Neither of us that day had had a lot of sleep, but we were ready to go and with too much weight in at least one of our day sacks we set off from the car park in Succoth.
We are not amazingly experienced at this (Ben Lomond and the Cobbler being the only others we have done recently) so decided to walk the path to the base of the Cobbler past the Narnain Boulders as we were unsure of the steep route to the summit of Narnain.
We started out from the car park in Succoth at 9:25am. Weather was good, not raining, and with some cloud cover which was slowly moving away. It wasn't too hot, which we were thankful for as the zig-zag path up through the trees to the dam was stifling on warm days. I'd learned this from experience! Even so, we were both down to t-shirts in short order. We made good time on this stage, managing to power up through the trees in roughly half an hour but then took our time along the path past the boulders, stopping to catch up with another couple of climbers and double check our route up to the summit of Narnain.
The Cobbler looked pretty impressive with the cloud and the blue skies
![DandtheCobbler2.jpg]()
- Ben Arthur
Past the cobbler we split off to the right and followed the path as best we could up the west face of Narnain. The trail was clearly marked in most places and we didn't find it too difficult going. We did lose it a couple of times, but quickly found it again. The trail, which wound up past the ridge closest to the Cobbler and then back over again, stopped once we reached a plateau where there was a large expanse of rocks and boulders to climb over before reaching the next part of the climb. Both of use scrambled over these like spider monkeys and started up again.
It wasn't long before we reached what we thought was the summit, and then another short climb to the actual summit where we stopped for a bite to eat. We checked our watched to see we had arrived at the top at 11:45. Not bad going we thought!
![ViewfromNarnain.jpg]()
- View From Bienn Narnain
The weather was still pretty good and the cloud cover was breaking over the summits. After a short chat with some other climbers we decided we'd head back down the way we came and make for Bienn Ime.
We took our time on the way down, losing the path slightly when we were descending the grassy part of the face, but finding it again easily. All the time we kept the gate at the base of Bienn Ime in view so we had a rough idea of where we were going.
We had heard before from other climbers that it was steep and sometimes boggy ascent up Ime and we quickly found this out before we even reached the gate in the fence at the bealach. So, with our boots nice and muddy we crossed through and started up. It was a busy place so following the correct route was easy. We did our best to avoid the boggy areas, but eventually stopped caring as our previous speed up the path to Narnain caught up to us and we slowed right down. As it got steeper we slowed down but kept powering our way up. Both of us got another burst of energy as we crested the ridge near the first peak and saw that we didn't have far to go till the highest point and in twenty minutes or so we were there, sitting in the ring of stones at the top to catch our breath.
![BiennIme3.jpg]()
- View From Bienn Ime
![Donein.jpg]()
- Bad hair and Knackered
By this point the clouds had cleared away from the summit and the views were amazing. We waited their for a while and then made our way back down the way we had came.
Apart from one incident where I decided to take the "easy route" along some grass and proceeded to almost fall flat on my face, the descent was easy enough and we walked at a decent pace back down to the car park at Succoth and back to basecamp for a well deserved chicken salad and chips.
A good day
