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We had a cottage booked near Crianlarich for the week and were hoping for a bit of summer warmth and sunshine, well, that didn't quite work out, we spent the first couple of days confined to barracks due to persistant heavy rain so our planned visits to the Arrocher Alps were thwarted somewhat, we felt that a foursome would compensate for our inactivity.
I had initially looked at the W.H route descriptions for Ben Lui, Beinn a'Chleibh, Ben Oss and Beinn Dubhchraig as two separate days out until I started reading peoples walk reports where they were doing all four in one day, well, I thought, could we do that? it is a long day and most people are around the 10 to 11 hour mark and, I felt, a day with a good forecast would set the plan in action so the 19th of July with it's mind bogglingly good forecast was that day!
We were up fairly early, our little cottage was only 2 miles away from Dalrigh, the journey time was only a couple of minutes so we had a leisurely breakfast and aimed to set off walking by 9am.
The mountains were obscured by thick cloud as we headed towards Cononish so the view towards Ben Lui was a bit disappointing, we could see the cloud lifting to around 800m but no higher, would that lot burn off before we got there, lets hope so?
Not looking too promising at the moment. Towards Cononish with Lui in the clouds behind.
At the green buildings the track continues straight ahead going slightly uphill then drops down to the Allt an Rund where we found all the rain had made it look interesting at the crossing point, well we looked for a narrower crossing upstream, found nothing suitable so went back to the crossing at the end of the track and decided to "test the water" as it were, even though there was a fair amount of water flowing we actually found a way over without getting wet feet so it wasn't as bad as it looked.
Once over the burn the path becomes pretty steep and remains so into Coire Gaothach. We headed on up and found the cairn and boulder arrow marking the start of the path taking you up to the ridge on Stob Garbh, it was around here where we walked into the clag so we saw nothing of the spectacular Coire Gaothach. Its a steep climb to gain the ridge and a warm one, the humidity of the day was getting to us, it was tiring, even in the cloud it was warm until we gained the ridge where a keen breeze was blowing, that cooled us down.
The climb to the summit from here is steady and on a clear day probably pretty spectacular, we reached the first cairn in no time at all, had a breather and set off for the main summit, we arrived at the summit 3.5 hrs after leaving the car so its quite a long walk in.
Denise on the summit with default views
No views from the top which was a shame considering the forecast was predicting clear blue and sunshine by this time but at least it wasn't raining.
After a brief discussion we decided to go onto Beinn a'Chleibh and see what happened after that, we didn't fancy spending the day in clag and I'd read the way over to Ben Oss was a bit iffy for navigation in the clag and having left no note of our route with anybody we thought it a bit risky, especially with the contour around Lui being a bit of a tester on the ankles.
As we were heading into the bealach the clouds lifted off all but the highest summits, what a treat.
Way down to the Bealach views.
By the time we'd arrived in the bealach, Oss was clear and as we were heading up Beinn a'Chleibh even Lui was clearing, if only we'd stayed up there half an hour longer......
At the summit the views were opening up nicely,
Ben Cruachan from the summit of Beinn a'Chleibh.
Ben Oss.
Ben Lui.
Denise on the summit of Beinn a'Chleibh.
Towards the Arrocher Alps.
Looking N.W
We could see roughly the height we'd need to be for our traverse around Lui so after a snack and a rest we set off back to the bealach and started to climb the slopes up Lui for about 150m then set off traversing. I was aiming for a big boulder which looked like a decent line, the going was easier than we thought it would be which was good for both pairs of ankles especially Denises as she has a plate in her left one due to a bad break some years ago.
Looking back to a'Chleibh from the traverse.
Nasty angle.
We arrived on the shoulder of Ben Lui just above our boulder and was quite surprised to see how high above the bealach we were, we really could have started traversing from the bealach instead of travelling that 150m and still would have arrived slightly high in the bealach between Lui and Oss.
There are no paths out of this bealach that we could see so its a case of taking the best line towards Oss and try to stick with it, this I can imagine would be a bit perplexing in clag so we were glad the day had improved.
A nice view of Lui on the way up to Ben Oss.
Its a long hard pull onto the summit of Ben Oss from this direction and I was concerned I'd bitten off more than I could chew, after a long slog the final ascent onto Ben Oss's summit is bouldery and a bit steep and it was a big relief when we saw the cairn at the top, once there we had a good long rest and look around.
We could see the Arrocher Alps, Ben Cruachan, the Bridge of Orchy munros The Black Mount, Ben More etc etc, but the one that really dominated was Ben Lui, what a magnificent mountain and now the sky was mostly blue and the sun was out, just bl@#dy fantastic.
Denise on Ben Oss, Ben Lui behind.
Views from the summit of Ben Oss
Ben Lui again.
Our next objective, Beinn Dubhchraig, didn't look that far away, thank god!
Beinn Dubchraig.
We set off for our final munro feeling fairly energetic guessing that once there all the uphill was over with, once over point 941m and in Bealach Bhidhe the climb up to the little lochans was the last really steep bit (well thats how it felt by now) and then it was a short stroll to the summit, ha!, no, my legs were like lead now and it seemed to take ages,
Near the summit, legs like lead but not far to go.
but we got there well pleased with ourselves.
Summit smiles, Lui and Oss behind showing the distance we've come, Poor Beinn a'Chleibh doesn't get a look in.
Now some summit views.
A last look at Ben Oss and Ben Lui.
it was 6:30pm at the top so we didn't stay too long knowing the walk back to Dalrigh was a long 'un. From the summit we retraced down to the lochans and set off down hill from a large cairn in the bealach, there's another cairn lower down and from there a path can be seen running down beside the Allt Coire Dubhchraig.
This was tiring, steep and slippy in places but never hard to follow. Eventually the path enters the forest and this is where it gets interesting.
Through the forest the path gets very boggy indeed, maybe it was due to the recent wet weather but this was really hard work on tired legs, concentration was needed to prevent ending up waist deep in bog and this coupled with slippy tree roots made for an exausting time.
The lower foot bridge on the Allt Gleann Auchreoch near its split with the River Cononish is just two rails with no planks in place, we crossed it where it joins the River Cononish and did it with relative ease, it was about 10 inches deep but the rocks underneath are stable enough to allow a lively pace and we managed to get across with dry feet. Once across we headed for the railway following the path to a bridge crossing it, from there on its a track which leads to a bridge over the river and then becomes part of the West Highland Way back to Dalrigh.
We had a long and tiring day, but it was a good one, a route I'm glad we decided to do so it's thanks to those whose reports I'd read describing this route, its nice to have seeds planted and those seeds coming to fruition.
