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I've been wanting to get Beinn Chabhair done for quite a while, as it's a quite annoying wee single at the west end of the Crianlarich hills. I hadn't given the route or potential difficulty much thought. Of course i'd failed to factor in just how horrible climbing, and more particularly descending even a relatively straightforward munro would be with a niggling knee injury.
The injury in question goes back to late last summer when I jarred my knee coming down from Monadh Mor. Being male, and stupid, I of course did absolutely nothing about it, and continued to play football, and climb hills when the opportunities presented themselves. This lack of common sense would finally catch me up on Saturday, the start of a what would otherwise be a great couple of days in an around Glen Coe, staying at the SYHA just along from the Clachaig.
Anyway, the morning began with a mildly hilarious drive to Glen Coe, via Scoob's house to pick up a set of crampons, which was then followed by a breakneck drive to find an open public convenience, which proved mildly less difficult than finding El Dorado.
I eventually arrived at the wonderfully bizarre Drovers' Inn to meet Graham and Robert. The walk in is rather short, a couple of hundred yards to the Ben Glas Farm bridge, across and up the track, somehow missing the totally obvious sign diverting us right, and then failing to then head left to the gate. We did realise our error eventually (on the way down). We started following a feint track up the steep hillside, soon encountering the fabulous Ben Glas Waterfall.
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- Ben Glas Waterfall
After ascending further, we soon realised we were on the wrong side as a) We saw another group crossing the stile further down, and b) there was a thundering great waterfall in the way. After jumping across the narrowest part of the fast flowing water, we made the path over some rough ground, and a brief stop further on to shed some layers. It was an absolutely glorious morning and we were all sweating more than a Scotland Rugby Coach before a press conference. The views were also wonderful.
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- The views East
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- Towards Arrochar
Having expected to meet some cold air at the top of the initial ascent, it was something of a surprise to continue to be fried by the sun for the next section, a very tedious mile and a half of boggy trudge. My knee had started playing up already, which allied to my laughably poor fitness levels and the hot weather was less than ideal. We eventually reached the imaginatively named Lochan Beinn Chabhair. It was quite lovely here.
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- Lochan Beinn Chabhair
The attractiveness of this lochan was soon forgotten however as a warm, steep and particularly (for me anyway) painful ascent began towards Meall nan Tarmachan. Once this was reached, there was the mere issue of what felt like around 100 false summits to contend with, before finally reaching the genuine article. The views in all directions were simply magnificent.
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- Towards Ben Lomond
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- Loch Long in the Distance
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- Back towards the ascent route and Lochan Beinn Chabhair
I was starving and absolutely demolished my lunch and sat at the cairn silently dreading the descent. My knee was quite swollen by this point and even stepping down from stone to stone was unpleasant, in fact any sort of descent at all was extremely painful and I really wasn't enjoying it. After getting past the reserve falsies, there was the descent to the lochan which took an age, on the plus side we did find the path we were supposed to take up
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- Graham posing
The next stretch along the flattish boggy moor was less than fun, and the sharp descent down to the campsite was utterly god-awful. After an eternity I got down, and reached the car with some relief, so ending a glorious, but crap day.
The rest of the weekend was spent faffing around taking photos while Graham and Robert got to do some walking, the highlight though was an excellent Cajun Chicken with Rice at the Clachaig on Saturday night.
Morals of the story are never to walk with an iffy knee, and ensure that you don't need to find an open public convenience between basically Blairgowrie and Kenmore before 9am.
