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The day started off with black clouds in the sky’s above the Arrochar Alps
. Leave the car park (remembering to put the money in the parking meter and get a ticket for parking) and cross the road to the start of the walk at the forestry Commission path. The first section of the path zig zags up to the seating bench at the side of the forest road continue along the road for a few meters and take the path on the right hand side opposite the mobile phone mast (the path is also marked with a wooden pole with a red band round it near the top of the pole). The path continues to zig zag a bit up through the trees until you come to the little dam on the left hand side. From here it was a straight forward path up past the Narnain Boulders.
- Narnain Boulders with the Cobbler in the back ground
We had no views at all on the way up and a once past the fork in the path to either go to the Cobbler or Beinn Ime & Beinn Narnain (keep to the right for the latter) we put on some extra clothing as the temperature dropped. keep ongoing along the path and then follow it around the back of Beinn Narnain. The path started to disappear at this point in the now very thick cloud but we got to the style over the fence with little trouble. Once over the style we made our way up towards the top of Beinn Ime losing the main path from time to time due to the thick cloud and some big patches of bog (in clear conditions the main path would be really easy to follow). Rejoining the main path nearer the top the going now quite easy with a couple of small steeper inclines we made it to the top stopping only for a few pictures and a quick bite to eat before starting the journey back down the way we had come up.
- Kirsty at the top
- Me at the top
The way down was much easier with the cloud now starting to lift and approaching the style in the fence we started to get some views of the Cobbler & Beinn Narnain.
- The cloud starting to clear
- View getting better
- Last look back at Beinn Ime
With conditions getting better and better the nearer we got to the car park at the start of the walk we past quite a lot of people just starting the walk but we agreed with each other that it was better to be going down now rather than up, and Kristy’s foot was now beginning to hurt quite a lot (found out that she has strained one of the tendons in her foot
). All in All another good day out even though I could not convince Kristy to take Beinn Narnain in again (apparently once is quite enough and she did have a sore foot as we later found out).