free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
No map attached as it was a textbook walk (for a change), following the WH route
At last I was able to escape having been medically grounded, 3 weeks away from the hills was not my idea of fun.
A weather window appeared on the horizon on the back of the record breaking temperatures down south.
My plan was not to tackle anything too ambitious just in case the knee started to react, so I 'hand picked' Stob Ban in the Corries as that seemed like a great chance to get back into the swing of things again.
I contacted Karen to see if she was available and fancied a day out, along with driving duties - her car it slightly better suited to trundle up the track to the parking area past Coire Choille Farm, as anyone who has been up that way will appreciate. If your car has firm suspension or is sensitive to slightly rough terrain, forget it
A post on the 'Meets' section attracted a few lurkers and before I knew it we had a gang of 5 heading up to Spean Bridge.
We opted for the usual early (ish) start, I picked David (kaiserstein) & Cat (cmarcol) up from Inverkeithing Railway Station at 5.50, the scheduled pick up, was Dobbies in Perth at 6.30, where I uplifted another David (stirlingdavo) and off we headed to Crianlarich, where we all disembarked and piled into Karen's car for the rest of the journey.
We arrived at the parking area and set off about 9.30. The plan was for kaiserstein to walk with us until he reached the 500m contour, where he would turn left & head uphill on his Corbett mission and tackle the "Innse(s)" and we would then meet up later on at the bothy for the stroll back down to the car.
Quick pose
Man on a mission, kaiserstein romping up the 'wee' hills (zoomed)
Kaiserstein is there
The bothy at the foot of Stob Ban
Bothy interiorc
Not too much bedding space
Sgurr Innse looking quite impressive
We had a look inside the bothy before crossing the bridge and then heading up the slopes that would take us to Stob Ban. There is a small cairn indicating the point where you leave the main path and start heading up, the first problem is crossing the Allt a' Chuil Choirean. You have a choice either the rickety bridge that looks like it is on it's last legs or stepping stones. On the way up we opted for the bridge, making sure we didn't overload it by crossing one at a time
Karen admiring the bridge?
Looking back, Cat trying her best not to be in the photo
Looking back again, path not quite the same as the one up to the bothy
Looking ahead to the summit
The UK's smallest tree - a dwarf willow, thanks to David for educating us during the day, if your passion is butterflies - David is your man
3 hours after setting off we were on the summit of Stob Ban and what views we were treated to, obviously the Grey Corries dominate the view to north, but the views of the Mamores were superb.
The main topic of conversation on the summit was how superb Binnein Mor was looking and we were sure that it looked higher than Ben Nevis. Admittedly the Ben was much further away, but it still didn't look higher.
We spent the best part of half an hour on the summit and were joined by another couple of walkers, big thanks to one of them who almost volunteered to take a group photo.
The Binnein's Mor (the big one) and Beag (the wee one)
The Grey Corries
Grey Corries, Ben Nevis (with the snow)
Looking SW down the shoulder
Looking SE
Looking down to the way back
Once David and I managed to persuade the ladies to vacate their comfortable summit seats, we headed downhill. We were basically returning via our ascent path, it seemed to be much steeper going down
About half way down the descent we could see a figure lingering near the bothy, so we knew David had completed his mission and would have to amuse himself until we joined him.
The highlight of the descent was a small group of 4 deer galloping across the path below us.
One of the locals making a brief appearance
Once we met up with kaiserstein, we briefly swapped stories and then started the long trudge back to the car.
We had been very fortunate on the insect front, the only area they kind of bothered us, was as we passed by the forested area, apart from that a gentle pleasant breeze was obviously too much for them - they really do need to 'man up' if they want to feast on us
We arrived back at Karen's car almost 6 hrs later, we were kind of dreading opening the car doors as the sun had been out for a good part of the day, but we were pleasantly surprised
as the temperature in the car wasn't too bad
Another memorable day, big thanks to Karen for kind of volunteering to drive and to the rest of the gang for your company. David (davo) hope you can make the summer meet, you know you want to join in the fun
Next target - CMD, hopefully there will be a half decent day between next Friday & Sunday
