walkhighlands

Share your personal walking route experiences in Scotland, and comment on other peoples' reports.
Warning Please note that hillwalking when there is snow lying requires an ice-axe, crampons and the knowledge, experience and skill to use them correctly. Summer routes may not be viable or appropriate in winter. See winter information on our skills and safety pages for more information.

Scene-sational Sgulaird

Scene-sational Sgulaird


Postby jupe1407 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:05 am

Route description: Beinn Sgulaird

Munros included on this walk: Beinn Sgulaird

Date walked: 24/11/2018

Time taken: 6 hours

Distance: 12.5 km

Ascent: 1272m

13 people think this report is great.
Register or Login
free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).

As I get down to my last 50-60 munros I'm increasingly finding myself having to finally get round to dealing with the single summits in my "ugh I can't be bothered" mental file.

Beinn Sgulaird was one of those summits, being on it's own and absolutely miles away. The opportunity to get it done happily presented itself at the Munro Meanderers Xmas meet (at the magnificent Corran Bunkhouse). I'd done Beinn Challuim the day before with Mark in what seemed to be an unending bogfest, with fairly constant rain. Following this up with several gins, and probably a dram or two meant I woke up on Saturday morning feeling pretty horrific. After a bit of a rush where I tried to keep down some god-awful porridge and a couple of coffees Mark and I headed round to the start point at Drumnavuich, Mark heroically driving as quite frankly me attempting to do would have been mildly illegal.

We were first there in the small layby and soon set off on a lovely still morning. I felt surprisingly OK by now although tasting whisky every time I burped/breathed was giving me the fear. The steep track soon led to a wee cairn, which led to a steep, but very good path up to the 488 point on the grassy ridge. Glorious views were soon to be had.

Image

Reaching this first "top" also gave fantastic views north. Beinn Fhionnlaidh and a few others were bathed in golden light. All thoughts of my hangover were banished and this walk had gone from a frankly dreadful prospect to something thoroughly enjoyable.

Image

On the downside, there are a few descents and re-ascents on this walk, the first coming immediately after the 488 point, with a good path zig-zagging down to cross a fence before steeply climbing back up the ridge. Again the gradient eases as the path meanders slowly upwards. We must have missed a turn somewhere as we ended up on a traverse path which wasn't gaining height at around 774m. We decided to head steeply up to the crest of the ridge, a good decision as we were rewarded with some terrific views. The sun's rays were breaking through the cloud onto Loch Etive.

Image

Further up Glen Etive, Ben Starav was capped in cloud but looked very atmospheric as shafts of golden light appeared here and there. What a day 8)

Image

By now I'd completely forgotten I was feeling rough, and wasn't even that annoyed by what, on any other day would be a seethe-inducing series of false tops and height-losses. This was fast becoming a brilliant hill day. Mark and I were making good time, despite stopping for loads of photos :lol:

The Buachailles appeared as the views further north opened out.

Image

The final pull to the summit from the final bealach is about 180m but is over decent ground and over pretty quickly. The clag over the summit cleared just as we got to it as well. I really should have stuck a lottery ticket on on Saturday night. I even caught a slight brocken spectre from the top.

Image

We stopped at the top for a while, soaking in the views. It really was hard to decide what to look at, with the isles behind us and mountains literally everywhere else we looked. I attempted a panorama:

Image

Beautiful as it was, it was starting to get a little cold, just as we were leaving another couple of walkers arrived, one of whom I know from an old job :lol: A quick chat and we headed down. The re-ascents to the tops were actually quite enjoyable. Helped no doubt by the fantastic views.

Image

Image

We made the bealach under the 488 point in fairly good time, opting to take the quick descent back to the track. Once more look at the views to the north and the snow-plastered Ben Nevis though.

Image

The grassy path back to the track was a bit better than I expected (I only fell once), compared to our hilarious efforts the day before in falling a combined 5 times, all within 50 metres of the track out :lol:

We made it back to Corran for sunset. A fitting end to an absolutely brilliant day.

Image

As a finale I can't recommend this walk highly enough. Yes there's a lot of ascent for a 937m summit, there's false tops and the start point is a pain to get to, but save it for a good, dry day and you'll absolutely love it.


our_route.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

User avatar
jupe1407
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 1501
Munros:269   Corbetts:52
Fionas:12   
Sub 2000:7   
Islands:6
Joined: May 15, 2012
Location: Forfar

Re: Scene-sational Sgulaird

Postby malky_c » Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:14 am

You almost looked like you enjoyed that :lol:

Great hill - like a little chunk of further north-west plonked into Argyll. Some amazing photos in there too :D
User avatar
malky_c
 
Posts: 6342
Munros:282   Corbetts:222
Fionas:219   Donalds:80+37
Sub 2000:315   Hewitts:281
Wainwrights:140   Islands:39
Joined: Nov 22, 2009
Location: Glasgow/Inverness

Re: Scene-sational Sgulaird

Postby 2manyYorkies » Tue Nov 27, 2018 9:48 am

Great report and your usual fantastic standard of photos JP. I must get the good glass out more often on the hill.
You also had significantly less cloud out there nearer the coast than we did waddling on the eastern Mamores lovely stuff.
:clap: :clap: :clap:
User avatar
2manyYorkies
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 266
Munros:187   Corbetts:22
Hewitts:76
Wainwrights:113   
Joined: Nov 8, 2013
Location: York (ver 1.0)

Re: Scene-sational Sgulaird

Postby Alteknacker » Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:15 pm

What a superb day you had for that long ascent! The pics are brilliant! :clap: :clap: :clap:

It's a good one to do as a one-er, rather than at the end of a long day - those false summits on the way up can really sap the energy!
User avatar
Alteknacker
Scrambler
 
Posts: 3473
Munros:176   Corbetts:33
Fionas:1   
Hewitts:264
Wainwrights:118   
Joined: May 25, 2013
Location: Effete South (of WIgan, anyway)

Re: Scene-sational Sgulaird

Postby jupe1407 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:41 pm

malky_c wrote:You almost looked like you enjoyed that :lol:

Great hill - like a little chunk of further north-west plonked into Argyll. Some amazing photos in there too :D


Cheers Malky. Definitely a very underrated hill and one to be repeated :)


Alteknacker wrote:What a superb day you had for that long ascent! The pics are brilliant! :clap: :clap: :clap:

It's a good one to do as a one-er, rather than at the end of a long day - those false summits on the way up can really sap the energy!


Thanks Alteknacker, it was one of those special autumn days with a constant source of good light. I think your route for this one might have killed me :lol:

2manyYorkies wrote:Great report and your usual fantastic standard of photos JP. I must get the good glass out more often on the hill.
You also had significantly less cloud out there nearer the coast than we did waddling on the eastern Mamores lovely stuff.
:clap: :clap: :clap:


Thanks Jonathan. We were pretty lucky with conditions and light. The mamores looked really atmospheric from where we were and I see you got cracking views of the surrounding hills and the Ben. A great day all round 8)
User avatar
jupe1407
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 1501
Munros:269   Corbetts:52
Fionas:12   
Sub 2000:7   
Islands:6
Joined: May 15, 2012
Location: Forfar

Re: Scene-sational Sgulaird

Postby jonny616 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:49 pm

Graet photos JP. Enjoyed reading that. Starting to think how we can raise the bar next year :crazy: :lol:
User avatar
jonny616
Munro compleatist
 
Posts: 1621
Munros:282   Corbetts:14
Fionas:2   Donalds:1
Sub 2000:1   Hewitts:17
Wainwrights:8   Islands:8
Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Re: Scene-sational Sgulaird

Postby jupe1407 » Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:07 am

jonny616 wrote:Graet photos JP. Enjoyed reading that. Starting to think how we can raise the bar next year :crazy: :lol:


Thanks Jonathan :)

Perhaps another amazing shirt and a mamore :lol:
User avatar
jupe1407
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 1501
Munros:269   Corbetts:52
Fionas:12   
Sub 2000:7   
Islands:6
Joined: May 15, 2012
Location: Forfar

13 people think this report is great.
Register or Login
free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).




Can you help support Walkhighlands?


Our forum is free from adverts - your generosity keeps it running.
Can you help support Walkhighlands and this community by donating by direct debit?



Return to Walk reports - Scotland

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: alison008, iangpark, PeteR, poppiesrara, roxk and 69 guests