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It had been a big week, with Christmas concert season really kicking off. Following a late night in Edinburgh, I was straight through the Helensburgh for a concert on Saturday morning. I was sincerely regretting agreeing to do anything afterwards….
Anyhow…concert dispensed with, the weather was stunning so I drove the few minutes up to Glen Luss, managed a sneaky wee change in the car and I was good to go. I knew I was up against the clock in terms of daylight so I realised I may as well cycle the few km up the track as I had my shiny new bike with me!
I’d forgotten how uphill this track was….so it wasn’t as easy a cycle as I’d expected, but I was definitely looking forward to the return
There were a few icy patches but nothing I couldn’t avoid with care and it looked like it was going to be a fabulous afternoon out
I made it to the dam pretty quickly, dragged the bike through a gate (I’ll leave out the bit about where I let go of the bike and ended up falling over it
) and left it out the way
Off the track, I crunched my way across a burn and I was out on the hill
There were traces of path here and there and to begin with the ground wasn’t too bad either. It was steep going but I gained height pretty quickly!
The steepness continued – last time I was up here there was quite a lot of snow and clag around, but this time I had to look ahead to the rest of the climb
Looking back – the views starting to open out
I met a guy as I was heading up the last steep section who gave me some interested sunset ideas
But before long the gradient eased and I was almost at the summit
Gare Loch and Loch Long
The Creag an Leinibh & Coille-eughain Hill ridge – this wonderful ridge has been on my radar for a while
It was a beautiful afternoon, even better now I was up high. The ground was frozen and crispy up high; the snow from a couple of weeks ago was all gone but the frost was trying hard to make up for it!
Summit of Beinn Chaorach
I was trying to work out what this was – I’m pretty sure it’s Mull
Zoomed to an atmospheric Cobbler
The Cobbler and Narnain
Looking across to the Cowal Grahams
A little something for Malky if he was here
It was cold so I added an extra layer and headed off along the ridge
It was an easy walk initially and I made good progress, before I started dropping much more steeply. There were bits of ice around too so I had to be a bit careful
Steep
Although I’d initially thought I would only have time for one hill, I was moving fast enough that I figured I had time to climb Beinn a’ Mhanach rather than walking back down the glen – the ground was still frozen enough that I could plow straight across rather than following the fence line
Looking up – steep
Looking back to the descent off Beinn Chaorach
I cut across to meet the fenceline before getting stuck the wrong side of a crevasse
A frozen waterfall
Looking back to the reservoir
It was a steep climb (everything around here is steep
) but before long there was a section that slightly levelled off and I took this opportunity to climb over the fence – sadly it’s been fixed since I was last here and it now had very sharp barbed wire across the top
Ouch
The final climb was brutally steep…but I was so nearly there! And so of course a band of clag decided to move in and make everything very atmospheric
Gleann na Caorainn – the sun hadn’t managed to reach that far all day and the glen was still frozen!
Looking back down to the reservoir
Looking down Gare Loch – the clag was a bit annoying but also kind of cool
Summit of Beinn a’ Mhanach
I had a wee bit of a wander around the summit to try to keep myself warm – it was absolutely freezing
Now I had signal I was able to check what time sunset was – the best part of half an hour later than I thought
I danced around for a while before realising I could get a decent way down the ridge and still catch the sunset, so I dropped off the summit, dodging the icy patches
The bigger hills – a wee big clag-bound the noo
Looking across to Loch Lomond
Beinn Eich and Gleann na Caorainn
The sun starting to drop…
Looking down “The Strone”
Looking all the way back up to the summit – some ridge
Cold
It looked like sunset was going to happen, so I made my stand and started freezing my fingers off
Beinn Eich
The light was starting to go now…
Looking back to the Cowal hills – clear now of course
Looking down across Faslane
Looking back to Beinn a’ Mhanach and Beinn Chaorainn
I dropped off the ridge – as I’d cycled to the dam I had to drop steeply back down to it
It was crazy steep and the dying light made the last bit slightly awkward but I got to the dam without falling over or needing my head torch
The reservoir in the almost dark
I picked the bike back up, headtorch on and about 2 minutes of dodging icy patches in the dark later I was back at the car!
Then I got in the car and headed for Corran before I thought about it properly – if I had I’d have probably said sod it and driven home
