Geal Charn, Monadhliath. Rain and rainbows

[mrssanta]

Coldwetandhungry our third and last baby started climbing Munros with us in 2010 and her tally is 21. She has gone on to do Gold DofE and is not so fussed about getting cold, wet and hungry with Mum and Dad, preferring to do such things with others. She's all grown up now and on Sunday 10th we dropped her off for Freshers week at Edinburgh University. I had a week's holiday. It was postponed from May when my gammy leg was preventing me walking. We'd planned at that time to spend a few days wandering about Benalder Forest.
Plan B was a week in September and to allow for possible escape routes we decided it would be fun to do the Lochaber Traverse over 3 days from Fersit. After dropping CWH in Edinburgh we headed for a bed in the Aite Cruinnichidh independent hostel. We had two cars because CWH had so much stuff so we planned to leave one at Fersit and one at Torlundy.
In the morning a quick look at the forecast told us that we were looking at a wet, cloudy day and quite windy as well. It looked like it might improve later in the week so we established we could stay another night in the hostel and decided to go for the single Geal Charn in the Monadhliath instead (plan C). We could then get ourselves set for a nice early start the next morning by planting a car at the finish line. More of that in the next TR
Anyway a good deal of faffing was done and it was nearly 11am by the time we got to Garva bridge to set off. There were big trucks going up and down the glen on the other side, and we could also see Landrovers and other estate vehicles parked not far from the start point. We heard shots at various times during the day but never saw any stalkers.
we pretty much followed the WH route up the East side of the Feith Talagain then straight up the nose of Geal Charn and back the way we came, so I won't post the GPX track here as it doesnt really add anything.

Looking upstream from the bridge at 523951. our route goes up the right hand side of the river, on boggy ground, not the track you can see

our target on a dreich day

plenty of water in the burn, we are approaching the crossing point of Allt Coire nan Dearcag

and here it is. will we get across without wet feet?

Looking back the way we came. Cloud lifting a bit maybe? please? Maybe I'm thinking if I wait a while the burn will go down a bit.

Oh well just go for it! poles and gaiters are really useful here and we managed to get across dryshod

photography rest on the way up, lovely autumn colours on a blaeberry.

Sun on the hillside looking up the Spey. you can see some of the construction traffic as well.

oh-oh, here comes the weather again

Rudolph at the top.
I think my camera might die soon, there is not a telegraph wire at the top of Geal Charn as it might appear from this picture

and me. But there is a good cairn with some shelter at the top for a bite to eat. It was too dreich to bother with cracking the stove out. And I think that this counts as a cloud-free summit !!!!

what's this? Blue Sky!

Looking back down to Garva Bridge. The weather is clearing

not sure what those distant hills are but they might be Ben Alder and Beinn a'Bheoil.

Oh My, there has been a lot of rain. There is a lot more water in this burn than when we went up!

trying to be arty

sploosh

The crossing point. We made it without getting wet feet though!

Looking back uphill from near the bridge. A gentle rainbow is visible

Strathspey

Garva Bridge.

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