Saturday 7th April 2007
The day before this walk I travelled up to Scotland for my first walking holiday of the year, and frankly I wished I was back in the Lake District. I had spent the last three Easters in the Lake District and it was weird not being there again for this Easter, but I'd been to the Lake District so many times in the last year it was getting too familiar. I'd be back soon, but until then I was in Scotland, in Inveraray, having caught the train first thing the day before to Glasgow and then the bus in the afternoon to Inveraray. The journey on the train didn't go smoothly as I spent most of it feeling rather sick after eating some roasted nuts. I won't eat them again. I arrived in Inveraray mid-afternoon and after a look around the picturesque town I decided the best place to go was to have a look around Inveraray Castle, seat of the Duke of Argyle. To be honest, it was nothing special, typical of inherited status and wealth. I felt more drawn to the spectacular surroundings rather than the contents of the house. I was planning to spend some more time in Inveraray on Monday but first, over the weekend, I wanted to walk up the Arrochar Alps.
So for this walk I got back out onto the hills and it was so good to be back out there, especially in such brilliant weather. Broken cloud and bright sunshine between the clouds was marred by a stiff, cold, northerly wind that sometimes produced a harsh wind chill. After a lie-in I caught the bus at ten to Succoth and when I got there I immediately headed up the hillside staying on the main path and zigzagging up the steep slope through a felled or recently planted forest. Arriving at a dam on the Allt a' Bhalachain I despaired at the large numbers of people on the tourist path and decided to abandon my planned route and instead I climbed up steep grassy slopes to the foot of Cruach nam Miseag. I was eager to climb the SE ridge of Beinn Narnain, but doing so didn't accord with my planned walk. Ignoring such complications I climbed up to the start of the ridge and began the exhilarating climb over Cruach nam Miseag and up to the top of the Munro.
So for this walk I got back out onto the hills and it was so good to be back out there, especially in such brilliant weather. Broken cloud and bright sunshine between the clouds was marred by a stiff, cold, northerly wind that sometimes produced a harsh wind chill. After a lie-in I caught the bus at ten to Succoth and when I got there I immediately headed up the hillside staying on the main path and zigzagging up the steep slope through a felled or recently planted forest. Arriving at a dam on the Allt a' Bhalachain I despaired at the large numbers of people on the tourist path and decided to abandon my planned route and instead I climbed up steep grassy slopes to the foot of Cruach nam Miseag. I was eager to climb the SE ridge of Beinn Narnain, but doing so didn't accord with my planned walk. Ignoring such complications I climbed up to the start of the ridge and began the exhilarating climb over Cruach nam Miseag and up to the top of the Munro.With some opportunities for a bit of scrambling, the climb was great fun but over all too soon and I was at the summit of my first Munro of the year: Beinn Narnain. After lunch at the summit I headed down grassy slopes to the col with the Cobbler. As I descended lower I despaired over the large amount of height I was losing, with the steep slopes of the Cobbler ahead of me looking more and more intimidating. At the bottom I joined the constructed path/steps up the steep slopes, wearily climbing up and resolutely keeping to the path all the way up to the top. When I finally reached the summit I squeezed through the crowds and scrambled up to the very top of the hill. This is very tricky and a little nerve-wracking, but being up there with loads of other people rather dampened the experience.
Turning my back on the southern top (which would have required hard scrambling) I headed across to visit the northern top before heading down the ridge and keeping to the top I forsook the path until the ridge ended and then skipped all the way back down the hill. It's always tremendous fun descending a ridge like that and I always really enjoy myself when I do it, especially when the weather is as good as it was for this walk, but now my fun was over. Climbing up to Bealach a'Mhaim I contoured around the northern slopes of Beinn Narnain, crossing a boulder field towards it's north-west ridge. The logical way to have done this walk was to have gone up the Cobbler first and then gone up Beinn Narnain, but by spurning the tourist path to the Cobbler I had forced myself into an annoying out and back on the Corbett. After crossing the steep northern slopes of Beinn Narnain I was now back on track, crossing the undulating landscape above Creag Tharsuinn to the top of A'Chrois.
Turning my back on the southern top (which would have required hard scrambling) I headed across to visit the northern top before heading down the ridge and keeping to the top I forsook the path until the ridge ended and then skipped all the way back down the hill. It's always tremendous fun descending a ridge like that and I always really enjoy myself when I do it, especially when the weather is as good as it was for this walk, but now my fun was over. Climbing up to Bealach a'Mhaim I contoured around the northern slopes of Beinn Narnain, crossing a boulder field towards it's north-west ridge. The logical way to have done this walk was to have gone up the Cobbler first and then gone up Beinn Narnain, but by spurning the tourist path to the Cobbler I had forced myself into an annoying out and back on the Corbett. After crossing the steep northern slopes of Beinn Narnain I was now back on track, crossing the undulating landscape above Creag Tharsuinn to the top of A'Chrois. From the summit of A'Chrois I put the strong wind behind me and headed off the hills down the grassy southerly ridge in company with two guys I had met on the summit. Crossing the Allt Sugach by a dam we followed a path across the hillside to the top of a steep track straight down the hill, the remnants of a cable track. This brought us back to the road where we parted company and I wandered into Arrochar wasting almost an hour as I waited for the bus. This was a memorable walk in fabulous weather and over tremendous mountains. The Cobbler is considered to be the best mountain in Scotland below Munro status and on this walk I saw that this was justified, unfortunately I also saw how popular this Corbett is as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment