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This was a great days walking. Up early and Boab picked me up and made good time to the car park just out of Crainlarich which you’ll find hard to miss. We had read the reports oh walkhighlands and looked at the keys for difficulty and Bog.
Though it was a very dry day and exceptional weather in the morning, this is the wettest walk we have both done. The key around the bog needs to be extended. It’s not that it is particularly bad (with a few exceptions) it’s just that it goes on and on and on. It begins at the style at the start and never ends till you return to the car park.
Enough of the moans, the views are terrific and the first munro reached An Caisteal has a great presence and full of character. It is a great looking mountain and very good challenge. We took the grassy route towards Sron Gharbh.
It’s a case of making your own way up as there is no path but this is probably the easiest part of the walk.
The views back as you make your way up Sron Gharbh are great, especially on a day like this.
Near the top a path comes in to sight and once on this it is fairly easy to follow. The route to Twistin Hill is rocky, damp and slippy in places and the cleft is fairly dramatic, which requires a bum slide down a couple of steep rocks.
The views back to Sron Gharbh and the impressive An Caisteal is now very much in sight after having a few glimpses on the way up.
It does not disappoint. From here it is a steep climb around the knoll which has a few large steps up which stretch the old legs do require a little bit of care but again easy enough to get up and over.
The views from the summit are great and we were lucky with the weather. Apparently there was only a 10% chance of clear munros. When we had set off we had both expected the worse but we got lucky.
After a break and some refuelling we set of for our next munro Beinn Chabhair. We set off towards Bealach Buidhe but turned off pretty soon and down the steep slopes of An Caisteal towards Beinn Chabhair. We had to lose a lot of height, at least 400 meters until we reached a couple of small lochans. These are not large in size but add a bit of beauty to the all ready impressive cories either side.
We dropped off the rucksacks and took the bare essentials with us. We took the westerly flank up Beinn Chabhair again with no path and a steep climb up to the summit. There is a path up from the north but not any good to us.
The views from the summit of Beinn Chabhair are again excellent and makes the pain and effort worth it.
We had a good view of An Caisteal flank and decided to change the route back and to traverse to the path at Bealach Buidhe.
Boab on the summit of Beinn Chabhair.
Great plan and looks easy from a distance but when going across and trying to hug the contours it’s painful. My feet and toes were tired of being at an angle 90% compared to my shinbones. Route one it was and this was sapping after dropping 400 meters, climbing over 300 meters, dropping 300 meters again and the climbing far too many just to lose it again as we walked down Bealach Buidhe.
Beinn a'Chroin now beckons and is a decent walk. It’s not too steep and it does have the very easy scramble. However the summit seems fairly close but then as usual it’s not the case. Plenty of little lochans up here and the summit is still a bit away. It is rocky and damp and slippy. Again you’re up and down quite a bit and might just be the way we were feeling. It takes ages to get closer but once there the views are again great.
The path down is easy to follow apart from the bits with plenty of boggy parts and there is a fair bit of erosion. The paths slope is gentle and traverse around small hills. On the flat it is particularly wet and easy to lose the path but the views along the river Falloch is great.
Forget the moans about the boggy ground. This is a great walk and if you’re lucky with the weather you’ll get stunning views, even if it is claggy the small lochans will create a bit of charisma.
