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Date. Saturday 5TH June 2010
Completed by. Dave, Julie and Wilson
Weather. Clear, sunny, mainly blue skies, 2nd day poor Vis
Time. 9 hrs + 9 hrs
Distance. 32 km
Ascent. 2800 m
Hills. Munro’s x 4
Corbett’s x 1
Grahams x 1
Ben Lui, Beinn Chleibh, Ben Oss and Beinn Dubhchraig
Beinn Churin
Meall Nan Gabhar
Starting from.
Dalrigh on A85
Usual start point at Dalrigh, we walked along the track to the farm at Cononish then cut off and headed for the mine. About 1/2km from the mine we headed NW up the slopes, then W for the final steep push on to the summit of the Corbett Beinn Churin.
![Beinn a Chruin (1).JPG]()
- steep gully near the summit
![Ben lui (2).JPG]()
- Beinn Lui from Beinn a Chruin
SW off the summit is 773 spot height, we skirted round there and down through some crags before crossing the Allt an Rund. From there we climbed hard and steep before eventually entering Coire Goathach and getting our first real views of Ben Lui.
![route to Ben Lui Coire (4).JPG]()
- hold on there
![route to Ben Lui Coire (5).JPG]()
- hold on there
This is where the Hills beauty is exposed, with the semi circle of its dark steep Coire rising to the summit, still holding small pockets of the last of the winters/spring/summer! snow.
Soon we find the track that gets us up onto the ridge then on to the summit.
We now head for Beinn Chleibh at 913 m, that’s just what the feet ordered. (They were now aching) we are on the summit within the hour. Weather is still fine so we decide to horse on and try to reach the Graham Meall Nan Gabhar, this was where we planned to camp over night and it now looked like we were bang on target.
We head SW, then we get our first glimpse of Meall Nan Gabhar… what a surprise for a wee hill, standing there all on its own with its NE side facing us. There really was not an easy approach up this steep face; there were several weak spots. But nothing easy. We pick our route while descending Beinn Chleibh, just N of the 743 summit, not the easiest, put it sure did look fun.
The climb was in 2 halves. Up through crags, Steep through a gully. It then levelled of for a short spell then becoming steep through crags once again, before emerging on the summit.
For me this turned out to be the surprise of the weekend. From the first views when descending Beinn Chleibh, when making the steep climb to the summit, the perfect High level pitch, sun set views, sun rise views and finally the views looking back when we left in the morning. What a great wee hill this is.
Camping gear packed we traverse the ridge and descend off the hill and are now heading for the Bealach at the head of Coire Laoigh, from here we join the path and head for the summit of Ben Oss.
We found this pretty tough, our feet were aching real bad, I was even getting the first sign of blisters appearing on my feet, and Julie was moaning about having to carry big packs on long hikes…. Mmmmmm
Unfortunately the weather was very poor compared to yesterday. There was very little rain, but the views, they were crap at times.
It took us a while to reach Ben Oss from the Graham in the morning; our pace had slowed somewhat since the day before. But now that we were here, and the mist had come in again we decided to move on at our snails pace to our final hill
Beinn Dubhchraig. Thankfully this looked not to bad at all. We simply horseshoed round Coire Garbh then up the steep meandering path that would eventually see us on to the summit.
We meant to take the N ridge off the hill but I ended up dropping into the Coire, and by the time I had realised, well I never had the energy or the strength to get my self up onto the higher ridge so decided to follow the Allt Coire Dubhchraig to the edge of the woods, and carry on through the forest walk and emerging on the track. Leaving only a short distance to go before reaching the car.
PS…
If you get the chance to climb the Graham Meall Nan Gabhar please do,I cant recommend it enough.
