Almost beaten on Meall Corranaich
Munros: Meall Corranaich
Date walked: 05/11/2012
Time taken: 4 hours
Distance: 9.5km
Ascent: 769m
Original plan was to go out on Sunday to the Glenshee area with Fudgie from this board but he had something come up meaning I'd be out on my own. However, another hillwalking mate of Fudgie's made contact and after breaking our respective mobile networks with the sheer volume of texts going back and forward to arrange a meet up and choice of hill, we decided on Meall Corranaich and Meall a' Choire Leith.
We were off pretty early and parked up about 8.40am, surprised at how low the show was sitting. . The summit of Meall Corranaich nowhere to be seen, hiding behind heavy cloud at this point.
We made our way through the boggy start, the sting of which was taken off by the thick snow. We turned off towards sotheast and the two guys ahead of us continued straight seemingly going straight line to the summit. We followed the fence poles as far as we could but visibility was reducing rapidly and what appeared to be poles in the distance turned out to be blades of grass only a matter of feet away - all very disorientating.
Poor visibility ..
With loss of the poles we went off route and found ourselves on the plataeu about 940meters. The weather was rough, strong wind, visibility about 10 yards. We sussed out from gps where we had went wrong and determined the route we needed to get back on track and with an attempt to retrace our steps leading us back round in a circle we were scrathing our heads. With the weather so poor, the fact we had already ventured off track and limited time due to other things later in the day, we decided to head back. Not a decision either of us wanted to take but it seemed the sensible one.
However, on the way down we bumped into one fo the guys from the car park who had been following us up. He'd saw that we had went off track and showed us the error of our ways. With another walker in the group we decided to go for the one top, and we followed the fence poles all the way up to the top with not a single break in the clouds.
Somes photos at the top, some refreshments then we made our way down.
After 15 mins of descent, the Cloud God laughed at us, as the clouds opened up to reveal the summit, which we hadn't saw all day.
We continued our descent passing a few other groups, not jealous at all that they were getting a clear summit compared to our cloudfest.
Further down, the clouds continued to clear up and finally back at the car by 1pm, it was blue skies all over the range.
Our dodgy route
We were off pretty early and parked up about 8.40am, surprised at how low the show was sitting. . The summit of Meall Corranaich nowhere to be seen, hiding behind heavy cloud at this point.
We made our way through the boggy start, the sting of which was taken off by the thick snow. We turned off towards sotheast and the two guys ahead of us continued straight seemingly going straight line to the summit. We followed the fence poles as far as we could but visibility was reducing rapidly and what appeared to be poles in the distance turned out to be blades of grass only a matter of feet away - all very disorientating.
Poor visibility ..
With loss of the poles we went off route and found ourselves on the plataeu about 940meters. The weather was rough, strong wind, visibility about 10 yards. We sussed out from gps where we had went wrong and determined the route we needed to get back on track and with an attempt to retrace our steps leading us back round in a circle we were scrathing our heads. With the weather so poor, the fact we had already ventured off track and limited time due to other things later in the day, we decided to head back. Not a decision either of us wanted to take but it seemed the sensible one.
However, on the way down we bumped into one fo the guys from the car park who had been following us up. He'd saw that we had went off track and showed us the error of our ways. With another walker in the group we decided to go for the one top, and we followed the fence poles all the way up to the top with not a single break in the clouds.
Somes photos at the top, some refreshments then we made our way down.
After 15 mins of descent, the Cloud God laughed at us, as the clouds opened up to reveal the summit, which we hadn't saw all day.
We continued our descent passing a few other groups, not jealous at all that they were getting a clear summit compared to our cloudfest.
Further down, the clouds continued to clear up and finally back at the car by 1pm, it was blue skies all over the range.
Our dodgy route
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michaelmcp
- Activity: Mountain Walker
- Mountain: still to be decided
- Place: Glencoe
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