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Left home a few minutes before 5:00; left car park, 6:15
Ben Lui, 09:15
Beinn a’Chleib, 11:00
Ben Oss, 13:30
Ben Dubhcraig, 14:45
car, 17:00; home ~18:30
A couple of months ago, I said that I’d like to learn to be more flexible with regards to 11th-hour changes, and to be better at developing walking plans on the fly. Be careful, little girl, what you wish for, for surely you will get it…I lost track of how many times the plans for this weekend changed. Weeks ago, Cat and I had pencilled in the SGSR, weather-dependent, as usual. We’d talked about making a weekend of it if we got a good window. In the week or so before, Martin started talking about the CMD arete again, and that was potentially back on the table. The weather didn’t play ball, so the last-minute plan was a return trip to the Cairngorms for a repeat attempt on the walk that was scuppered on the previous Sunday due to the weather. Even more last-minuter, the last-minute plan fell apart. I was late to bed, planning to head to Beinn a’Ghlo in the morning. Then I remembered the Tyndrum 4, which appealed to me slightly more than Ba’G, mostly for being closer to home. OK, OK, admittedly, the opportunity for upping my count by four rather than the one that Ba'G offered might also have had a wee something to do with the decision.
I was up and out early again, having not slept much. The midges were out in force in Dalrigh, so it was quick on with the boots, and up the glen to Cononish. It was a bit drizzly for a while, but the worthwhile reward for that was a spectacular rainbow. I congratulated myself for trading a longer walk in for the tricky river / railroad crossing from Glen Lochy, and then fighting through the boggy forest. When oh when will I ever learn the lesson about being smug??
The top of Ben Lui was in clag, and I dithered a bit looking for the way to Beinn a’Chlieb. I’d taken a bearing, and thought I knew the correct direction, but was hoping for some visual confirmation: either the top or a path, or both. The cloud soon lifted slightly, delivering both, and I was on my way again. The top of Ba’C was mostly clear, so I enjoyed the view while I visited each of cairns, then headed back down to the bealach to begin the traverse across to Ben Oss. Another important lesson: when someone like Simon or rockhopper, who does massive routes on a regular basis, reports that a particular section of a walk is long and tedious, I should probably multiply my own expectation of "long and tedious" by a factor of at least three. I traversed for what seemed like a very long way, but then, neglecting to properly interpret contour lines OR distance
, I climbed up to what I thought was going to be a ridge between BL and BO. It wasn’t, of course, and I could have done without the extra ascent and descent back to the point to where I should have continued the traverse. It took forever to get to BO, but once I finally made it, the way down to the next bealach, and back up to Ben Dubhcraig, looked quite manageable. The view from BD, the day's 4th summit, was magnificent. There were quite a few showers about, both toward Loch Lomond, and toward Bridge of Orchy/Glencoe, but I sat in warm sunshine, and contemplated that all (ALL!!) I had left to do was the walk back down to Dalrigh.
I’d made a note on my map – “long and boggy”; again based on other reports I'd read – so thought I was prepared: I was not. The intermittent path along the burn was steep in places, and included plenty of slippery bog – big drops down into mud that might sink a lot, might sink a little, might send my foot sliding out from under me, or might be solid. Nearly every step called for planning, testing, and caution. I thought the situation might improve when I reached the forest: I was wrong. It was overgrown, and the bog was worse than it had been higher up; I stepped into boot-sucking knee-deep squelch multiple times. It was hot, bug-gy, and midge-y. Hacking through the bracken left me feeling horribly crawly, imaging it, and subsequently me, covered in ticks. EEEuuuughh! The final insult was crossing the Alt Coire Dubhcraig, which left me with water-filled boots, and soaked to the knees. At least it temporarily washed all the muck off!
I was done in by the time I reached the car, and feeling as though the final few kilometres had sucked some of the joy out of the day. But a long hot shower, some food, a good night's sleep (finally!), looking at the photos, and writing this has brought the day back into a much more balanced perspective: It was another good ‘un!
back toward Ben Lui, and north (from Ben Oss)
on the way to Beinn Dubhcraig, looking to the south of Tyndrum -- Ben Challum on the far right?
zoomed toward Loch Lomond -- showers about
looking back over some of the day’s work (Ben Lui, Ben Oss)
