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Due to the short winter days, an early start was essential - not early enough though but more of that later!
I picked Peter up in Glasgow at 7am for the drive to Glencoe. We stopped at the Falls of Falloch on the A82 to take some pictures of the waterfall with Autumn colours around it:
We'd planned on a traditional East to West traverse. so parked at the Aonach Eagach carpark (right next to Sir Jimmy Saville's (RIP) white house) and set off around 9.30am - tons of time!
The climb up to the steep well defined path to access the sub-top that is Am Bodach. On the way up, the lost valley of Bidean Nam Bian across the road comes into view:
The Wee Bookle is across the road and to the left:
The rather impressive outcrop of The Chancellor is seen from Am Bodach:
It is not far until you encounter what is described in the "Glencoe Scrambles DVD" (Headcammer productions 2003 - good plug for your DVD Gordon Old!) as the "entrance exam". Basically, if you can do this without too much discomfort/anxiety/toilet trouble then you should be able to complete the ridge.
Heading to the entrance exam:
The dog watches someone doing the 20m drop:
I'd done the Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor in July (see my runner up for July trip report here :
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13758 ), so my scrambling is good enough. What is different here is that there are downward sections, some leading to exposed drops. Being shorter I much preferred to come down backwards facing the rock, but Peter liked the bum slide approach. Peter found the entrance exam quite daunting.
Peter descends cautiously:
The way forward:
The views over the A82 looking west:
Steel poles mark the ridge:
After the entrance exam, you get a break as you climb up to the first munro Meall Dearg. Then you catch your first real view of the crazy pinnacles. OMG this looked like it will be interesting! There must be around 5 or 6 of these pinnacles, which are easily climbed by scrambling up the rocks, and if you take your time (there is that TIME word again!!) you can get down them without too many difficulties. The second to last one looked very steep rock and there was an obvious path to the right side (North side).
Looking back to the first munro:
Nice view to our left:
The sun starts breaking through and shows us the Mamores and The Ben:
Another of those steel posts:
DO NOT GO THIS PATH, the drops look really bad. We went up and over, following the rock - much better!
The final pinnacle does have a reasonable path to the right that Peter took whilst I went over the top again.
After the pinnacles were completed my adrenaline level dropped and I felt terrible!! I needed sustenance as my blood sugar level must have dropped down. This was literally eating into our precious time.
The low sun makes for great photos:
The sun goes down:
The slog up to the second top and then onto the final munro was tough and that sun was getting lower and lower. Aware of the limited light we headed down but looked like we were heading for the dreaded Clachaig gulley, so headed to the right and found an obvious path which took us out nearer to Glencoe village - which I now realise is NOT the right descent! The common descent is to the south, back to the A82! Our poundland headtorches were worth their weight in gold as it was 7pm when we hit the road!
We thumbed a lift and it was a fair distance to the Clachaig pub where the kind driver was heading. We supped a pint (shandy for me as I was driving) and then caught a taxi back to the car which trust me was £10 well spent!
We spoke about the walk all the way back to Glasgow, it'd been one amazing day:
Directors Cut (commentary):
