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The long way up Beinn Bheula

PostPosted: Tue Jan 01, 2019 7:09 pm
by tomyboy73

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I had a day off work and wanted to finally get Beinn Bheula done and complete the "Arrochar" Corbetts.
I dropped Leianne at work and would pick her up again on the way home so I wanted to make this relatively short walk last the whole day so my plan was to follow The Cowal Way for a bit in behind Bheula and come back over it. Was a good idea at the time!
It was a beautiful morning and things were looking good. There was pretty much a clear blue sky above with just patches of cloud spread around with one clinging on to the top of the mountain.
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Beinn Bheula


I thought i`d be smart and cut across the grass and the Lettermay burn to the path on the north side. Although the burn is narrow , I was struggling to find a good crossing place without getting wet and once across the other side, I had to tramp through bog and climb over old stumps , I shouldv`e just took the path !
However once on the other side and after having a wee lie down to cool off, I was sweating a bit ,I was welcomed by two buzzards flying overhead and up on the hillside. Serendipity !
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buzzard in the trees

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Buzzard take flight


I carried along the path and the cloud was starting to lift off Bheula now.
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Beinn Bheula

There`s a great view here of the waterfall before you go into the bush for a bit.
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waterfall

There`s an old landrover track, part of The Cowal Way that turns right and steeply climbs up through the side of the burn, i wouldn`t like to go up it in a landrover right enough with great views over to Bheula and it`s many Crags once you emerge from the bush and back over Loch Goil and to Cnoc coinnich ?
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Bheula

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Bheula

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landrover track

Crossing the burn again at this point would be the normal way up but i`m not normal and carried on towards the Curra Lochain. I though it would be nice to stop here for a bit, make a brew and watch the small birds gliding over the water but the conditions changed rather quickly. The clouds above Beinn Bheula were turning grey and there was a bitter wind beginning to bite into me. There goes my hopes of a clear summit.
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Curra Lochain

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Curra Lochain

I made my way alongside the Lochain. There`s a new path under construction here but it`s still at the early stages and it`s just a mucky mess at the moment. Into the forrest and I estimated it to be about half a kilometre until a clearing on the map which i was going to go through to start going up towards Carnach Mor, the peak behind Bheula. Si i tried to pace it out , counting 500 large steps and i ended up just shrt of the clearing i would take.
The way in was actually marked by a couple of poles with flags on presumably left there by workers on The Cowal Way path. The long grass was slightly trampled down and it made for easy walking until i began to gain height again.
It was a steep climb over difficult , lumpy terrain and i had to just zigzag my way up trying to find a route that didn`t burst my legs. This is when i began to think going this way was such a great idea ! There are some interesting crevaces though, ones which would be deadly in the snow.
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Crevace


I was still getting decent views with Beinn Lochain looking impressive.
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Beinn Lochain

But ahead to the summit I was aiming for wasn`t so inviting..
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into the grey

I weerily made it to the 634 metre summit of Carnach Mor then dropped down into the bealach for something to eat and sat down for ten minutes. Long enough to start getting cold and then i was off again.
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Carnach Mor

It didn`t take too long to get to the top from here, but it was pea soup, windy and I had to switch on Gps to get myself safely to the summit cairn, where I promptly touched the cairn and turned around to find the way down through the craggs on the east face. The wind was non existant down here and i was out of the cloud and followed the well worn path down to fence with a stile which I climbed over and down to the burn to retrace my steps back out, however i didnt cross the burn again i used the proper path.
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looking back