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Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain


Postby katyhills » Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:48 pm

Date walked: 14/01/2017

Time taken: 4 hours

Distance: 6.4 km

Ascent: 720m

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A decent fall of snow and a reasonable forecast for Saturday, so I headed to Beinn an Lochain, one of my favourite hills, as it's a short journey for me and a nice half day out. Just right for those dark mornings when it's a struggle to get out of bed :oops:
Lovely skies on the way there, but the clag was sitting on all the Arrochar and Rest and be Thankful hills. Hopeful that the blue sky would magically appear on the summit by the time I got there, I set off.
Not too cold and the steepness of the walk means you only get cold when any wind catches you on the exposed sections. The path was still visible early on - just - but some other walkers, who were up earlier than me, had kindly made some good tracks for my short legs. Thanks gents! :D
Plenty of photo opportunities early on - The Cobbler under the snow filled clouds.
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All the Arrochar hills had clag today apart from The Brack - it managed to escape the 'lou'ring sky'
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Looking the other way, down Glen KInglas, there were good views to the Tyndrum hills beyond. Looks like they were getting a bit more sun
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The monochrome landscape allowed for some good icicle shots
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Great to see some snow, but it's a b***er when it gets in your way and you have to do a small detour :lol:
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The clag higher up meant concentrating on some of the frozen rock formations instead of grand, distant views of surrounding peaks
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because there certainly wasn't much to see at the summit! :lol:
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Crampons went on, as many of the steeper sections were icy, and heading back down, Glen Kinglas had caught some of the low cloud
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but there was a nice little glimpse of Loch Fyne out to the west
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The clearest Beinn Luibhean had been all day
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Almost back down to the A83 and the car, and a couple of buzzards were wheeling round. One stopped long enough on a rock
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A last look back at a great little hill - or what was still visible of it!
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It looked much clearer from Beinn Luibhean on New Year's Day though :D
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katyhills
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Re: Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Postby teaandpies » Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:38 am

I was up there on the 12th of December 2016 in hellish wind and rain. I took 2 photographs the entire walk.
I didn't close my pocket zips properly and ended up with puddles in my jacket before falling in the bog meters from my car. Probably the worst walk of the year for me. I was up and down in 2 hours 40 minutes. I didn't eat or drink after hitting the dry boak 10 minutes into the walk :lol:

I'm sorry you didn't get the grand weather on Saturday past (you should have been in Glencoe :wink:) but your day out on this hill was still miles better than mine :lol:
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Re: Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Postby katyhills » Tue Jan 17, 2017 9:15 am

You should have gone there the weekend before you did teaand pipes - it was superbly frosty and frozen. The boggy areas at the bottom were a joy to walk across! :lol:
DSCF3255 (640x380).jpg
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Re: Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Postby teaandpies » Tue Jan 17, 2017 12:50 pm

katyhills wrote:You should have gone there the weekend before you did teaand pipes - it was superbly frosty and frozen. The boggy areas at the bottom were a joy to walk across! :lol:
DSCF3255 (640x380).jpg


Bad timing on my part for sure but I had driven to this hill earlier in the year and drove away because of the weather so poor. I didn't want to do that again :roll:
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Re: Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Postby basscadet » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:18 pm

Strange how in just a short distance the conditions can be so different - We were on Ben Lomond on the same day and whilst it was a bit powdery snowy, crampons would very much of been overkill as all the patches of ice were very avoidable - in fact the folk that had crampons on looked to be really struggling :lol:
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Re: Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Postby katyhills » Tue Jan 17, 2017 6:41 pm

You're right basscadet - the view I had early on through Glen Kinglas showed how lovely and clear the sky was -typical!

The snow was changeable in terms of depth, and no issues as it was soft, but there was a fair bit of ice. Lots of tricky bits were certainly avoidable, but I made the decision to put my crampons on for coming down, just to make life easier. There was a couple of pairs of chaps who didn't seem to have used them - I couldn't see any marks, but there was another chap on his own who had his on for the descent - I could see his spike marks all the way up. Horses for courses! :D
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Re: Crampon time on Beinn an Lochain

Postby jmarkb » Tue Jan 17, 2017 6:59 pm

basscadet wrote:Strange how in just a short distance the conditions can be so different


Quite different slope aspects too, assuming you were on the normal Lomond circuit.
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