
This was a fantastic day with a great group of people, all very fit and experienced walkers. There were 11 of us. Many people found it hard going initially due to the heat, especially when we had to walk up the mainly pathless grassy steep hillside up to the bealach, but the views at the top were well worth the struggle. One group member had climbed these hills twice before, and he had very kindly suggested to me the evening before the walk that we might make our descent from the bealach, a bit further east of the ascent route, instead of the traditional way down Beinn Eunaich, which has a very steep section. I looked at it and agreed that it seemed a good idea. The only thing was, he was pointing to slightly different grid reference co-ordinates for where we would meet the path near the bottom than the point I could see. I thought this might be because he was using a 1:50000 map and I was looking at the 1:25000 OS map online. Anyway, I plotted an online map following his guidelines, and we followed this route on the way down. At one point during the descent he started going off in a more westerly direction and most of the others followed him. I think he was still following the different grid reference point. I was slightly behind them at this point, but I stayed on the more easterly course, which led me more directly to the dam where the path at the bottom started. He noticed this and walked over to where I was, with the others. He is someone I`ve known for a while and get on with really well with, so there was no bad feeling or argument about who was right or wrong. I thanked him for having suggested this alternative route, which although slightly longer in terms of distance was much, much easier on the legs. I think we all really enjoyed the day.
Area :
Glen Etive to Glen Lochy
This is the area south of Buachaille Etive Mor as far as the A85 (Tyndrum to Oban road). It includes the peaks around the Glencoe Ski Centre (Creise and Meall a’Bhuiridh) alongside eleven other Munros and many other peaks above 600m. Highlights such as Ben Cruachan (1126m) and Stob Ghabhar (1090) remind all-comers that this is an area of high mountains and low glens.