by david roy » Sun May 31, 2009 9:36 pm
Date walked: 31/05/2009
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On my first ascent of Bidean nam Bian , i came up the Lost Valley and met a walker who had ascended the nose of Gearr Aonach and said it was an easy scramble..However from the valley it looks so impossible i have always been keen to try it. Indeed when viewing the Three Sisters from The Study or even higher up the valley one can see the zigzags on the eastern face of Gearr Aonach quite easily.
So last Tuesday en route for Rum , i had the ideal opportunity to attempt it.
At first i walked up higher path in the Lost Valley but went too far and came to the scree slope.
Doubled back a bit and went straight uphill from a large boulder on the path to meet the extreme right edge of the rock face to find an obvious path ascending to the left at the edge of the rock.
I thought the route would then be easy , but following the path i again came to the same scree slope and realised i had gone too far . There were several possible routes but all looked very difficult.
I returned to the bottom of the path thinking of giving up , but on walking a short distance on the grass shoulder to try and get a better view , i found i could see the zigzag again, following some small trees. However as soon as you move to the rock face you lose sight of it. Exasperating.
I tried ascending again and by focusing on the small line of trees , found the next zigzag ascending to the right. There is a small 5ft easy scramble to this next path which is what makes it so difficult to see.
Next i came accross a sharp left turn with a steep scramble facing and again confusingly there is a path going straight ahead but i think this a dead end formed by those looking for an easier route.
The next 30ft of scrambling was the most difficult of the route but there is no sense of exposure.
One final sharp turn right brought me to the nose of Gearr Aonach and great views.
It is then an easy walk to summit.
I got tremendous satisfaction from this route , partly as it was quite difficult to find.
I suppose i might have been able to download exact coordinates for my GPS , but then would have missed the challenge.
I have never seen this route mentioned in a walking guide but it is definitely one i will use again.