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We set off at 7 am for our last walk of the week (and follows another night of being eaten by midges) and we wore shorts as it had looked fairly clear at the start; however, soon after we got onto the open fell we were subjected to a bitingly cold wind from the east that remained all through the walk.
We followed the route described in WH past the sandy beach at lochan na l-Earba then after about 0.5k veered off to the right heading for the lower slopes of the eastern most rim of the corrie. We never saw a path and this was another soul-destroying climb up steep heather slopes (and by now my legs were just not recovering from the cumulative effect of the week's effort).
We followed the rim of the corrie in the freezing wind the summit of Beinn a' Chlachair, but were too cold to hang around.
Beinn a' Chlachair by
snowdonia7, on Flickr
We followed the broad rocky ridge in a north easterly direction until we reached the bealach above Loch a' bealaich leamain, and whilst it was a steep descent it wasn't too bad. Indeed, I did wonder why the route description doesn't suggest continuing up to the bealach for the ascent of Beinn a' Chlachair.
From the bealach we descended a short way before picking up the track heading north to a bealach between Creag Piridh and Geal Charn. We dropped our packs here and made the climb to the summit of Geal Charn.
Geal Charn by
snowdonia7, on Flickr
After returning to our packs we had some lunch before the short climb to Creag Pitridh
Creag Pitridh by
snowdonia7, on Flickr
We descended west then south west to pick up our original path in, which we followed back to the car and then headed back to north Wales (with a short pit-stop at the Dalwhinnie distillery).
Hopefully, I'll get another trip in this year to go below 100 to go!
