Fhionnlaidh fae Etive, the better option
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:41 pmAnother outing, 3rd time in just over a week, what could be better? George was unavailable but Parminder was free so I had to come up with a plan of where to go. It was my turn to drive so I had to find a "new" Munro for Parminder to visit, without bikes. I quite fancied the Ben Lui group but after the recent wet weather in August not only would the river crossing be challenging, the under foot conditions would also be not to our liking.
I opted for Beinn Fhionnlaidh in Argyll and after looking at a few reports I thought why go all way round to Elleric (an extra 45mins drive), like I did last time I was here, we could give the Glen Etive start a try. I plotted out a route as I wasn't aware there would be a path to the summit, a bit hit and miss over the stony terrain but apart from that it was excellent.
I informed Parminder of the plan and arranged to uplift him at 7am at our usual meeting spot. The drive through to Glen Etive was certainly far better than the return journey. One thing we did notice was the number of campers and campervans in Glen Etive, we just hope they leave the area as they found it.
I arrived at the Park and Ride early and the car in front happened to be Parminder so once his car was parked we were on our way. We broke the journey by having a pit stop in Tyndrum.
The parking area
The way ahead is through the gate in the distance
Useful info on the gate, you see that every day
The way ahead
Ben Starav looking like a smoking volcano
Rhododendron and plenty of them
The way ahead
Looking back, Parminder in his usual "teenage" position
That is where we are going, summit on the left doesn't look too far
The track changes into a path
The track continues round to the right
Bit of descending, there is a faint path
At the end of the forest, we turned left and headed down towards the burn. There is a path that goes straight ahead and that takes you in the direction of Sgor na h-Ulaidh.
The path keeps you just to the right of the gully
Looking back, after a wet spell this bit would be damp
The old rickety bridge has been upgraded and some leftover wood was used to make a wonky looking bench
The bridge saves you wading across the raging torrent which was barely a trickle for us
The path now heads uphill beside the dried up burn
Looking back, the edge of the forest is very obvious
Looking back, our first glimpse of Loch Etive dominated by Starav
Looking back, the forest looks quite a long way now
The way uphill, the path doesn't look obvious but it is
Looking back
Etive hills looking rather bulky
Parminder able to follow the path easily, summit on the left
Looking back and down, we are now just short of the ridge between the eastern top and the summit of BF
Not far now
Looking SW to Beinn Sgulaird
Looking across to Glencoe and Sgor na h-Ulaidh
The final wee bit
Looking back, we avoided the extra ascent to the eastern top and traversed across the scree
Video on the summit of Beinn Fhionnlaidh, apologies for the wobbliness, I was walking over very uneven terrain around the trig
Parminder taking a few photo's, one of these days we may actually see one
Camera photo looking SW
Western end of Glencoe with the Ben in the distance
After lunch and plenty of photo's it was time to head down, we would basically retrace our steps.
Didn't notice the cliffs on the way up, was too busy overheating
Shows the 2 'new' bridges
Rhododendron appear to have seeded themselves
Glencoe in the distance
This turned out to be a fantastic day out, the temperature was ideal a bit of a breeze higher up and importantly there were no little insects wanting to annoy or eat us. I was surprised that the underfoot conditions were fairly dry, I even removed my gaiters once we were over the bridges. Thanks again to Parminder for his company and for the bacon roll and coffee.
