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Munros: Stob Ghabhar
Date: 14/09/2019.
Distance: 22 km.
Ascent: 1120m.
Time: 7 hours, 30 minutes.
Weather: Grim - Wet and claggy with brutal wind on the summit.
It must've been on the Christmas meet last year at Corran that I agreed to go along for Clive's last Munro - I could barely remember the conversation (including thinking that Ben Starav was the hill in question for months afterwards
). Jackie and I had considered doing a summit camp the night before, but other things got in the way of that, and as we got closer to the weekend, the weather forecast was deteriorating rapidly. Typical Munro completion weather then
).
In the end, Jackie couldn't make it up to the bunkhouse until after the actual walk, so I got the first bus up from Glasgow and met David in Tyndrum for the last short drive to Victoria Bridge. A pretty large group had assembled - I think about 40 people started off walking. There were quite a few people I knew there, but due to everyone's Goretex all-over disguise, it took me quite a time to work out who! The start time had been brought forward by an hour to 9am to try and beat the weather, but it was probably in vain.
Victoria Bridge - do we have to? Precession heading to Clashgour The revised plan was to approach from the west to avoid crossing the Aonach Eagach in the forecast high winds. Although the going was pretty unspectacular from the off, the wind was still fairly light at this point. As expected, in a group of 40 there was a fair range of ability, and the line of walkers straggled out over 500m or so even early on.
Meall nan Eun ahead Shortly after leaving the good track at Clashgour, we had lost a couple of folk. As we wound our way up the stalker's path in Coire Ghabhar, we lost a few more. Still, there were around 30 people making the steep ascent up to Sron a' Ghearrain.
Conditions were still benign on the Munro Top, which isn't far from or much lower than the main summit. But things were about to change...
As we moved east towards Stob Ghabhar, the gusts started hitting us. Not too strongly at first, but quite suddenly. Soon we were on the final cone, and had stepped off the firm turf onto greasy scree and boulders. The going became very much more difficult at this point, and we manged a group huddle behind an outcrop. In the end, a large number of people decided not to cover the final 3 or 4 minutes to the summit cairn. Hardly surprising really - I'm a heavy guy and I was struggling to stay upright! Robin's anemometer was registering wind speeds of up to 60mph, and it certainly felt like it.
Struggle for the summit Clive gets to the summit In the end, 14 of us made it to the summit cairn, including Clive obviously -it was going to take a lot to stop him! Although there was a bit of whisky, summit celebrations were almost completely lacking - we just needed to get out of there as fast as possible. Congratulations Clive
. Robin managed to capture the full misery of the summit
here.
The group huddle was still there when we returned, but even getting back off the slippery boulders to the grass was a bit of a trial. Early on in the day (and previously), I had discussed carrying on to Stob a' Choire Odhar with David, but that wasn't even a consideration any more. However there was another Munro top that I hadn't visited nearby, and Peter was also keen to wander over to this. Given the size of the group, I didn't think we'd be much behind everyone else by the time we were done.
Peter on Stob a' Bruach Liath We wandered off, aware that we didn't accidentally want to end up descending the Sron a' Ghearrain on the wrong side of the hill. Despite our efforts, we almost ended up doing this anyway, and a co-ordinate check and a couple of bearings were required to sort us out
. While hardly pleasant, the wind was a little less brutal over here, and the cloud even thinned a couple of times, offering looming glimpses of the adjacent ridges. This ridge looks really nice - I'd love to go along it in good weather sometime.
Dropping off the back of the hill back towards the stalker's path, we never did quite catch up the rest of the group until the last leg over the bridge to the carpark. It wasn't for lack of speed though - despite Peter telling me to go on ahead, he had no problem keeping up and we both made a pretty rapid march back out the way we'd come. The rain worsened for the last hour and by the time I got back to the carpark I was both relieved and also dreading the bit where I stopped moving.
Back at the hostel, it was party time, with Clive providing a great spread of food - much appreciated. I was going to put up the tent but it was foul outside, so opted to kip on one of the couches. This was preferable, but did mean I was last up and first awake
. Still, it was handy as Jackie rolled in about half an hour after midnight having just driven up from Glasgow. I wasn't sure if she'd bother, but the forecast for Sunday was looking much better. Today was a lucky escape for her
.