Beinn Teallach – 50 Shades of Winter Pink

[andygunn23]

Beinn Teallach – 50 Shades of Winter Pink

The outing previous to this was Beinn Teallach’s neighbour, Beinn a’Chaorainn, and previous to that was Beinn a’Chaorainn’s neighbour, Creag Meagaidh. Three separate journeys from Aberdeen to near enough the exact same start point. In my earlier bagging days, I’d have done everything to tackle all three in a “oner” – but this is the perfect example that it doesn’t always need to be hard to be an exceptional outing.

Our plan was straightforward; leave Aberdeen 5pm, cross-country drive. Park the car, get ready, set off in the dark, cross water, pitch the tent somewhere before attempting to reach the summit for sunrise the following morning – all in the depths of winter. In hindsight my straightforward interpretation may not meet the dictionary definition.

As the majority of the walking was done in pitch black my photographs don’t start until much later on – so here’s a quick teaser to hopefully keep you interested.

Teaser


It was my turn to drive across and it felt particularly odd setting off so late, when it was so dark and cold – there was a real sense of, “what on earth are we doing… again!”. This was compounded by the fact that there was no guarantee we would even get any visibility on the Sunday morning, but the forecast did hint at a possible cloud inversion, so we were putting all our eggs in that basket.

When we arrived at the layby, we parked the car and commenced the time-consuming task of getting our winter kit on in the dark. The layby puddle, which looks like it spends the majority of the year there, had a reasonable layer of ice and the ground was frozen rock solid. We were nice and sheltered but by the time it took to get boots, gaiters etc. on it was beginning to feel emphatically wintery.

This was my first overnighter since August 2019, so effectively the first of the 2019/2020 winter season (and unfortunately last!). The first camp of the winter season always give you a bit of nervous energy, so with that energy we set-off along the familiar path we had trodden just last month, December 2019.

The biggest uncertainty was what we would do when we reached Allt a’ Chaorainn, about 2km into the walk. Our strong preference was to get across the water and make a bit more progress, leaving us less walking on the Sunday morning. On the flip side, in terms of suitable places to pitch a tent next to Allt a’ Chaorainn seemed like the best option.

One wildcard suggestion we had was to walk the entire route to the summit overnight and camp just off the summit waiting for the sunrise from the comfort of the tent.

According to the photo time stamp it was 22:53 when we reached the river, but I have a suspicion it may have actually been 21:53 – either way it was late. It was January. It was dark. It was VERY cold.

We found the ford to cross relatively easily, but the much hoped for steppingstones were far out of the question – it was socks and boots off and wading across shin deep type job.

I waded across first hopeful to get a good picture of Andrew falling in. I jest – I think.

I don’t know why I’d bother describing the water temperature. It was January and we were in water freshly melted from the snowy hills. It wasn’t likely to be tropical.

We both made it across uneventfully, but it did have a good sense of achievement at the time. We were effectively in the middle of nowhere and if anything went untoward it would be a bit of an inconvenience to say the least!

The crossing


Once the boots and wet-ish socks were back on, we marched ahead, passing a number of good potential camp spots, but kept hoping for something better.

As luck would have it, there wasn’t anything better.

Or not that we could see through the limited distance beaming from our headtorches. Upon reaching the boundary of the fenced off woodland, we crossed the remains of a battered wired fence. It was here we decided to find somewhere to get the tent up.

The trees from the woodland had offered some shelter from the wind which had now made any overnight summit attempt unfavourable. Admittedly we probably should have retraced about 1km to a better spot, but it was only for one night!

The ground was frozen but boggy.

It was frozen until you stood on the same patch for a minute or two then you’d slowly melt further into a puddle. Tired and cold we found what was the best of some bad options, got the tent up, teeth brushed, into sleeping bags into bivvy bags and attempted to sleep.

This would be my 40th night camping or bivvying somewhere wild in the Scottish hills (the wonderful spreadsheet informs me), so I have had some uneven ground but once in the tent I quickly realised this would probably take the crown for the worst pitch!

The slant felt like 35degrees down towards our feet and the frozen ground was melting. Before long the ground sheet felt like a waterbed – a very cold waterbed. Although not the most comfortable once inside the sleeping bag and all wrapped up it was warm enough to get to sleep.

We had about 3km of distance and the majority of ascent to tackle in the morning. I can’t quite recall what time I had the alarm set for, but we aimed to be at the summit for 08:30-09:00, so I would hazard a guess it was an early one.

It was far from a good night’s sleep and I’m notoriously slow at walking early mornings, quite often I’ll feel sick for at least the first hour, so I wasn’t particularly motivated to get going. I was even less motivated when we open the tent doors to see visibility was max 10m.

There wasn’t a great deal we could do except for get the soaking tent down and packed – easily the worst part of winter camping, and head upwards.

There was lying snow almost immediately from leaving the tent, but it hadn’t been around for long enough to offer any relief. Instead it was wet sticky snow lying on top of boggy heather, so a bit of a hinderance.

We marched on single file going at our own pace, ensuring we kept within visibility of each other. Once we had a bearing, there wasn’t any real navigation – compass lined up, it was just a case of heading straight towards the summit.

The cloud was thick, and the wind was picking up with every step towards the summit. This made for wet and miserable conditions that really seemed to sap the heat out of you quicker than you could build it up.

We could see the mist whizzing past, thoughts of any views at the summit at this stage seemed limited. Very limited.

The world slowly began to lighten up even through the mist and clouds, but our brains only registered this when we stopped for a rest and turned off the headtorches.

A couple of hundred metres from the summit we were beginning to get more and more visibility, but any lingering hope a full-scale winter cloud inversion had to be put on hold for another day – law of averages, surely soon!!!

It was now bright enough to comfortably see without any headtorches but the sunrise we were hoping for didn’t look imminent. We found some shelter from the wind, sat down and began munching on some breakfast. Just as I got comfortable and got some extra layers on the bland sky began erupting in purple and red.

Praying the clouds would stay away


The initial bright burst of pink seemed to last hardly any time at all and next we were greeted with a more normal sense of brightness – very hard to describe.

I remember being a tad disappointed at the lack of inversion and quality of the sunrise. Probably more disappointed given the quality of sleep from the night previous. I also remember discussing how it was still worth being there!

After the initial colour – looking toward Loch Treig (slightly obscured) – been there!


We quickly decided there was no point lingering about in the cold and we should just begin retracing our steps as quickly as possible. Just after we left the summit, the cloud that had accompanied us on the way up moved into our place and enclosed the summit, almost as quickly as we escaped below it.

Thankful we left when we did!

The next 15-20 minutes we were treated to one of the most brightly coloured winter sunrises I have had up the hills in a long time. Unfortunately, it was still slightly misty and as it turned out the camera lens was a tad steamed up. Hence the pictures not being the clearest (which I only realised one down at the car…).

Afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it, that in real life it was exceptional. Rather than describing the straightforward route down I will just share some photos of the sun rising and the colours changing minute by minute.





















Good life lesson to start taking a proper cloth the clean the camera lens and keep said cloth in a sealed bag somewhere other than my trouser pocket which quickly gets soaked by the constantly changing body temperature.

The lower we got the clearer visibility was and the closer we got to our “campsite” the quicker we realised there really wasn’t anything suitable close by. That entire side of Beinn Teallach is a bit of a bog, at least when we went it was.

Before long we were nearly back at the car and met a couple of groups just setting off. They looked slightly puzzled, but far less hill-beaten then us! By the looks of things, they would have had a far warmer and better day visibility wise – boring…

Back at the car and ready to make the Sunday cross-country drive in some excellent conditions.

All that remained was the hardest part of the weekend – not having an afternoon nap before bedtime!

Thanks for reading!
Andy