fine day out

[davetherave]

Date. 17th may 2009
Completed by. Dave, Julie and Wilson
Weather. Dry, clear sky’s and very windy
Time. 8hrs 15mins

Beinn a ghlo circuit

Start from loch moraig

We make our way to the 2off timber huts approx 2km along the track where carn liath first comes in to full view with the visible track leading up the southwest face.

carn liath

Making good time Lock Moraig quickly becomes a distant memory and before long carn liath summit is within our grasp. Its about this time that the winds significantly pick up with gusts of at least 40km or possibly more, unfortunately those conditions will last for nearly 2 ½ hrs of our journey. Due to the winds and lack of shelter we don’t linger and quickly move on to the 2nd Munro of the day cairn of Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain. The next part of the walk was my favourite part of the day, skimming round the corrie to reach the pass that leads us onto a nice ridge walk. But the wind is still with us, this is the worst wind since our failed attempt on Glas Maol back in January. We are now nearly walking side on; the going is tough in the biting cold winds.

julie in the wind

Again we don’t hang about, and hope to get some needed shelter in the decent before our final Munro of the day. Rising up Bealach an Fhiodha well in the distance, we spot our only walkers of the day, coming off the summit of Carn nan Gabhar, turns out to be a group of 6 or so that left just before us at Loch Moraig. On meeting them they tell us they are doing the route in reverse…. Only wish we had done the same, would have meant avoiding the long slog back. Mmmm.
Wind has now died back, thank god, and soon we reach the final summit of the day, the large built up cairn is where we shelter what a relief.
Beautiful clear skies and an abundance of Munros in most directions, to many to mention. We stayed for nearly 30 mins it was fabulous.

looking over to devils point ( can you find Wilson )

We head back the way we had come then cut off and follow the burn down towards the bealach where we eventually pick up a path, this part was fairly hard going as it was boggy most of the way inn.

Now quite warm by this stage, we stop to shed some clothes, silly me I set down my compass and get my self organised, was not until about a further mile or so on that I realise my compass is missing … PANIC…..
Map alone, im positive we are heading the right direction, but still this is not a good feeling. It just makes you wonder if the conditions were bad, thankfully on this occasion they were not.



South of us we spot a small lochan (it has no name on the O/S map) and this is what tells us we are homing in on loch moraig. What a relief, and I wonder should my wife and I both carry a compass !!!

[Paul Webster]

Good report on probably the best hill-day out in the area. I seemed to have missed this report at first

[maddjock]

can you find Wilson

if it wasn't for the yellow colour around his neck, that would've been pretty difficult to pick out...