Ben Vorlich & Stuc a'Chroin in the snow

[weaselmaster]

I'd hoped to go up here last Saturday - but the weather was not permitting. Then I tried yesterday but my car malfunctioned on the road up, so it seemed like there was some kind of force preventing me getting to climb these hills. I'd also been a bit anxious about how to get up Stuc a'Chroin in the snow - that prow thing looked a little fearsome to a novice like me...did read through the various reports on here and didn't have the best of night's sleep thinking about it

Anyway - forecast was reasonable - a little fresh snow in the morning and moderate winds, so I got going about 7.30 and made it along to the parking beside Ardvorlich Estate just after nine. There were a few others there setting off to, so at least there would be other souls out and about if anything did happen


File1039 by 23weasels, on Flickr

After walking through the Estate path the hills all around, and the path were covered in 1-2 inches of new snow. My legs were a bit sore from my exertions up Binnien an Fhidhlier yesterday, but pressed on. Began to see the outline of Vorlich against the heavy sky.


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Met a woman who told me she was waiting for a party coming up, two of whom were going to get married at the top of Vorlich! Nice day for a white wedding, anyway Not that far after the path splits it became increasingly icy under the snow and by the time I was about two thirds of the way up had to put the crampons on. There were good views back to the hills up to the North


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and it was good to see a lack of clag at the top for a change, although the sky was leaden coloured. As I reached the last haul up Vorlich, met one of these runner blokes coming down - amazing

Made the summit of Vorlich in 2 hours and had a wee look round - didn't want to cool down too much.


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Looking over to SaC...


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Cairn to N of Vorlich top

At this point I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to attempt SaC, but did decide to walk down to the bealach to have a closer inspection. It's quite a drop in height, following the metal fence posts.


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Stopped to have a roll and consider what to do in a sheltered spot near the base, with a good look onto "the Prow".


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Plus a wee look back up at Vorlich

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I did have a route up on my GPS, but I reckoned it would be quite hard to follow in the snow - I also thought about going off round the WSW and climbing up the steepish route out of the corrie, but from the way the wind had been blowing I was worried that there was going to be quite a bit of cornicing at the top. So I thought I'd give the prow route a go - what's the worst that could happen

It looked a bit steeper from the bottom than when I'd been looking over at it on the way down Vorlich. Initially I did try and see where the GPS route was going to take me, but I found that too challenging to look at whilst I was going up, and I wasn't keen on heading for the rocks that were sticking out of the snow as there was no telling how difficult they were going to be to get around - I didn't fancy scrambling over the rocks in crampons. So I thought the direct route was called for and decided to front point it straight up. The snow was well frozen and was taking my weight well - this was the first time I'd been out in my G12 crampons and thought I'd see how they fared. Pretty tiring, but didn't feel too scared unless I looked down


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Most of the way up...

Think it was actually easier to go up in this kind of snow than in non-snow conditions.

By the time I pulled myself over the edge and could walk on horizontal as opposed to what felt like nearly vertical stuff in bits I was exhilarated and did let out a small squeak of joy at getting up there

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Again great views back to Vorlich and down the steep North side of SaC.


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Headed over to the cairns along the ridge -

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another walker was just leaving as I was arriving, having presumably come up the south route, so I had the top to myself.


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To put the icing on the cake, got a double raven flyover as I walked from the North to the South cairn - yay!

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Headed along to the descent route which heads down a steep gully (marked with a cairn at the top) from the West aspect of SaC. This gave me plenty of practice about how to walk steep downhill with crampons on - truly a day of learning for me!.


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Side of the prow of SaC

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Another view of Prow of SaC

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And the full length:

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The WH route contours round a NW outcrop of Vorlich which does save on distance compared with going down into the flat areas nearer Glen Ample, but was hard going on the legs in a mixture of powdery and hard frozen snow - seemed to go on for miles! Finally got back in sight of the return path, with a few walkers heading down. Trek back to the car was uneventful if a bit slippy in places - had to resort to eating snow as my reservoir tube had frozen solid and I was quite thirsty after that walk. Snow was starting to fall (lightly) as I got back to the car for just before 3pm.

Gates out to the road

File1137 by 23weasels, on Flickr

{ I did have some pics of the adventure, but gutted to find that they're corrupted on the SD card after I viewed them once - if anyone has any tips for trying to restore such things, I'd be most grateful, otherwise imagination will have to suffice - Ha - downloaded some fancy software that fixed that problem}.

Felt really good about today - one of these times when you know you've tested yourself a little by doing something that challenged you a bit and it went OK

[Graeme D]

I was on Creag Garbh on the south side of Loch Tay today and these two were looking mighty fine under a good covering of the white stuff!

[Fudgie]

An excellent read and that prow is great fun

Unlike Graeme I couldn't see those two today as I was a bit further north at Glenshee and the view South looked very dark and ominous. I'm glad it wasn't like that where you were

[Scotjamie]

A great report wm - well done on a learning day - very enjoyable reading. Shame about the photos - no idea how to help with the SD card, except to provide a photo of your prow from earlier this year...though I suspect it won't help...

[weaselmaster]

A great report wm - well done on a learning day - very enjoyable reading. Shame about the photos - no idea how to help with the SD card, except to provide a photo of your prow from earlier this year...though I suspect it won't help...

The Prow - SaC.jpg

Woo - it's GREEN!!

Thanks anyway - as you can see I managed to get a fix (CardRecovery in case anyone is in a similar fix, though it isn't free - tried a couple of shareware/freeware ones that didn't work first)

[IndoorMunroist]

Terrific photos, I really like the grey skies, really atmospheric. Double raven flyover - great phrase.