Ben Lui & Beinn A Chliebh

[MunroMadMen]

Ben Lui, one I had fancied for a while..... had watched videos on youtube and read loads of reports.... it was time to get this one done. I had heard al about the boggy start etc etc however was not ready for what we encountered. Myself & Andy had arrived in the car park early, we had packed light and intended to move fast. Boots were on the ground for 07:45...... due to the recent weather our plans to move fast were hampered by the fact the river had swollen and was pretty fast moving, we wandered up and down for a period trying to find the best area to cross without taking a swim, eventually we picked a spot and went for it...... soaked boots right at the start

We cleared the bog and the trees and started our climb up to the Bealach, as per the norm the cloud was sitting on Lui like a hat, no change from every time you drive past, would need to be pretty lucky to get this one on a clear day, the climb itself is pretty steep although we were making good time. we kept setting targets and beating them, not that we didn't want to enjoy this one but fitness was good and we were travelling at a real good pace.

Before long we had reached the summit, shrouded in cloud we decided to carry out tradition then move on to it's partner Chliebh, whisky was drank and the mountain was toasted then the descent began, it was on the way down that we started to see breaks in the cloud appear which began to open up the views

From here it was a clear route to the top of the nxt summit, time was looking good so we forged ahead taking in food as we moved, energy bars awesome, the views that began to open up around us were exceptional, its funny how you look back on pictures and they never seem to really capture the sight you took in

2nd summit of the day had been reached, early starts seem to always give us the mountains to ourselves and its only ever on the way down we meet others on there way UP lol, from our viewpoint we could see people on the slopes there day just starting and we had just nailed two summits by early afternoon, if the weather had been better I'm sure we would have taken more time but on the occasion we were happy with the progress.

What a day out, 2 summits in varied weather conditions and we were back at the car by 13:45..... classic adventure and a climb I would deffo advise, if crossing water on a wet day take a dingy though