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Beinn a'Chleibh by
AlexFrood, on Flickr
Same as many of the days that came before my alarm went off in the van, this time in my spot in the snow filled car park in Beinn a’Chleibh.
I had half expected to awake in my van to it rocking in high winds as that what was predicted for the day by MWIS. But my plan for the mountain day was to be out of the wind and so far it had worked.
Again like most days this season the snow was all the way down to the car park, which is a lot nicer that walking around wet bog. I started off the the path for a few hundred meters before i reached the river, which was nice and low so it was easy to cross without getting my boots wet. After that you have to crawl under the train track bridge with a river running thought it that has a raised walk/crawl way, well I say raised, it was an inch above the water level at it heightist. After I had passed the challage of the day it was time for the forest.
The woods took me by surprise, for two reasons.
With the trees weighted down by a mountains worth of snow the look and feel of the forest was somewhat magical, Ive walked in forest many times before but with its full and thick snow covering it just felt pretty special. It was like i had taken a wrong turn in Scotland and ended up in the Alps.
speaking of wrong turns, this was the other reason way the forest took me by surprise as I may have got a little lost. because I was using a 1:50k map for all my nav this season and there is a lot less paths and details than a 1:25k. which is fine and better for winter as snow covers up a lots of details anyway, This is fine in the mountains but as I find not so much in the forest. I went a few streams too far and finding a large bridge and access road which wasn’t on the map, I had understood that I had gone wrong, so I followed the access road for a few hundred meters and counted the streams until I came across the one I wanted. From there I left the access road and follow the stream up, where the snow got deeper and deeper and the trees sagged even more under the snows weight. As I was breaking trail in a touched forest it just felt pretty special.
finally after almost 2 hours after entering the forest I came to the deer fence and gate which marked the entry into Fionn Choire and the climb up to the bealach.
The ascent was pretty easy going and it was nice in some ways, to be out of the wood so I could pick up a bit of speed. In the woods stepping up, over and around tree roots and long branches in snow was slow going.
I made the Bealach in good time and had a wee rest for a bit. My plan for the wind for the day had worked on the way up and even on the bealach and finally on the ascent to the summit, it was pretty shelter by the hulk of Ben Lui.
like most days with season for me I had great views again which unfortunately
for nav practice that wasn’t great
On the way up to summit I met the first people and only people I saw that day, who were doing all four munro's that day. After reaching the summit I stopped to take in the views before I headed down again to bealach to get out of the wind.
Getting back to the Bealach it was finally time for lunch, this turned out to me the most heart breaking moment of the day, biting into one of my pork pies and getting an odd taste in return, looking at the packet and seeing the use by date was 12 days before, well that was a let down.
The wind had picked up a bit more so it was time to get the goggles on and an ice axe out for the first bit of the Fionn Choire descent. After that it was a pretty speedy walk back into the forest.
It wasn't that late in the afternoon so I could let myself have some fun with photography in the forest on the way out, of which I did.
I finally got out of the alpine like forest just before half two and made it back to the van shortly after.
for a day were the winds was meant to be really bad just shows with some planning you can still have a great plan out.
A nice sunset out the back window of the van where I could chill out for a few hours.
For some reason photobucket to lowing the quality/compressing some of my images to much, so Im going to looking into that. High quality version are on my flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/61814980@N07/with/16438160085/Hope you haver enjoyed this report, I’ve still for a few more to write.