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Having climbed Beinn Chabhair over 20 years ago, I’ve only now got round to climbing the remaining munros in that area (family now grown up so I can get back to walking !). I found a walk report for the An Caisteal, Beinn a Chroin, Beinn Tulaichean and Cruach Ardrain from Inverlocharig but not from the A82 so I wanted to see if I could join them all up as a loop from the A82/Glen Falloch. It looked fairly straightforward on the map the only issue being the drop down east of Beinn a Chroin and the ascent over Stob Glas to Beinn Tulaichean. In the end I worked out a route for my GPS but had to vary it slightly on the day to get up over Stob Glas.
[My track shown below is truncated to 500 trackpoints as the original activelog is too large]
As usual I set off very early from Glasgow – the weather was fine until just before the car park on the side of the A82 when it started raining. Fortunately it had dried up by the time I started walking but was still looking threatening.
I headed off up the main track then off over boggy ground to go up Sron Garbh and Twistin Hill. I think there may have been a track but I didn’t pick it up until further up. Two miles in, it started to rain again, the mist came down and, to crown it all, my boots which were just over a year old started leaking; pretty soon my socks were soaked through (as an aside, I took them back to Tiso the next week, they tested them and then gave me a credit note for the full amount). I think I had everything in my rucksack bar the kitchen sink...........or spare socks (so I now carry spares with me)
The rest of the way up An Caisteal and Beinn a Chroin it was very windy, very wet, very cold and I couldn’t see anything for the mist. I did try to shelter behind a boulder to see if it would blow over but after nearly 30 minutes I gave up as I was getting too cold. No pictures of this bit as there was no way I was stopping to get my camera out (in any event my fingers were numb from the cold despite having changed to my second pair of [supposedly] waterproof/windproof gloves).
Just after Beinn a Chroin as I was dropping down into the valley, the weather cleared a bit, the sun came out a little and I could even see some blue sky – the rain stayed off the rest of the day – and I could see a herd of deer slightly further down. The drop down from Beinn a Chroin was straightforward enough over clumpy, boggy grassland but the ascent upwards over Stob Glas was very steep with a fair bit of scrambling.
I eventually came out on the ridge between Cruach Ardrain and headed up to Ben Tulaichean with some great views to the south and Inverlocharig - also a great vantage point for Ben More and Stob Binnein.
I then headed down and up to Cruach Ardrain. The route back was via Meall Damh and Grey Height and then following the edge of the forest back to the main track.
