Clouds of the Monadhliath sky
Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 10:29 pm
Fully recharged thanks to yesterday’s lazy afternoon and an early night I set off from the car park in Glen Banchor for a circuit of three hills in the Monadhliath. Thunderstorms were forecast for late afternoon. If the weather stuck to the forecast, I would be treated with far reaching views and be back before the bad weather. For this trip I was using the 1:50,000 Landranger map and it took some time to adjust, having used the Explorer maps so far for most of the munros. When I was doing a lot of long distance walking I swore by the Landranger maps, proclaiming that they matched the situation on the ground much better. Now I was struggling a bit….
I could see the corrugated hut from the track and that was the cue to cross the river, which was easily done. I was delighted to pick up a path soon. And even better, I managed to follow it all the way to A’ Chailleach, without even losing it in the peaty areas!
It was quite muggy and I was looking forward to a cooling breeze once on the summit. Which I more than got! In the end my hat had to go into the rucksack as the wind was keen to have it.
The views to the southwest were great and the clouds very interesting.
There was still a lot of snow around just above the Allt Cuil na Caillich, which could not be avoided. So I picked the least steep slopes for the descent, but it added more distance and more bog to the traverse. On the upside, the cloud above A’ Chailleach was fascinating.
Once again, it was very windy on the summit of Carn Sgulain, and the cairn offered nothing in the way of shelter. In my opinion, when it comes to cairns, size matters.
Thanks to excellent visibility the rest of the walk to Carn Dearg was straightforward. And thanks to dry weather the numerous boggy bealachs weren’t too bad.
More great and far reaching views along the plateau. Some impressive clouds were now forming in the south west. There was this thunderstorm cloud that was bugging me a bit, but on the way to Carn Dearg it didn’t seem to come closer.
I had fun contouring Carn Ban to the east of the summit. I doubt I saved any time or effort: it was very rocky. Onwards to Carn Dearg along the steepest section of the walk. The easy walking on the plateau had made me lazy. On Carn Dearg there were excellent views of the steep sided corries and glens. There was a certain beauty about the river meandering and the peat hags down below. I made a note to try and remember this whilst trying to conquer the bog.
In the mean time the clouds kept entertaining.
All the way two walkers had been in front of me. They decided to carry on to the 923m south top of Carn Dearg. I was wondering which descent route they were going to take from there. It was very tempting to also continue to the south top as it looked great and I would be able to see Loch Dubh. But the steep descent from there into the glen was putting me off.
So I went back to the bealach and then dropped down into Gleann Ballach. To be fair, it wasn’t too bad thanks to the recent dry weather. I came across some old tree roots, all gone silvery.
And more interesting clouds above Carn Dearg.
There were various intermittent paths/ animal tracks and vehicle tracks. I wasn’t sure where they were going, so I just made my own way. It was only at the 560m bealach, NW of Creag Liath, that a proper path emerged, although it was very wet. This was a stunning place. It felt very remote amidst the hills, but it is only a good 5km from the car park in Glen Banchor.
The dilapidated footbridge was in good nick, I thought.
The track provided an easy, not too steep descent back to Glenballoch along the river.
Once in Glen Banchor the clouds once again caught my attention.
In the end the forecast thunder storm never materialised, but it had made for some entertaining and spectacular clouds.