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The weather forecast led us to believe that Sunday was to be the better day of the weekend. The drizzle was just starting as we left home and headed for Glen Lochay. I had the wipers on intermittent trying to pretend that it was not actually raining and cheerily reassuring my daughter that it “would brighten up later”. She didn’t look convinced.
The rain eased a bit as we parked the car and set off down the track from Kenknock. Indeed, as we had our backs to the wind I managed to convince myself that it was not raining at all. There were a couple of other cars parked at the road end so we were not the only idiots. We reached Betavaime after about an hour and turned up the hillside past the two farm buildings and onto the upper track. Then straight up Sron nan Eun, clawing our way up the steep grass past rocky outcrops. There were a few flakes of snow falling at this point. On gaining the ridge we then had a pleasant walk up into the clouds to the summit of Creag Mhor arriving just before midday. I recalled that the forecast had said something the weather clearing by this time and as if by magic the clouds parted, the sun shone and the sky was blue.
In anticipation of a fine day I had brought some sun cream along but we decided not to be too hasty.
We carried on west for a short way before going down grassy slopes with some large patches of snow to the bealach shared by Meall Tionail and then made our way across boggy ground to the very steep looking SW ridge of Stob an t Fhir-Bhoghe. It was every bit as steep as it looked but once at the top the ridge flattened out and rose gently over a kilometre or so of snow to the summit of Beinn Heasgarnich. The weather deteriorated again with a bit more snow and poor visibility.
Some animated discussion ensued about the best way to get back to the car and in the end we walked back along the ridge for about 500m before descending across some large, deep snow fields in an easterly direction, going over the next ridge, across more boggy ground, down to the upper track and back to the car. By this time winter had turned into spring and I even took my hat off! Forgot the camera so no photos.
