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.
I did this walk with a friend who had already done Ben Starav, so we decided to reverse the "normal" route and start with Meall nan Eun. After a long and pleasant walk-in, we were faced with a very steep, slippy and pathless ascent up to the plateau of Meall nan Eun. After taking an early lunch, as we started to head down, the wind was against us and we got very cold quite quickly. The route-finding wasn't easy, but we managed to find our way over Meall Tarsuinn and up to the summit of Stob Coir'an Albannaich. I generally take the lead in navigation, as my friend has some problems with her eyesight. We both enjoyed the climb up to Stob Coir'an Albannaich, and on the way down we were chatting happily and probably not paying too much attention to where we were going, as I could see from the compass that we were heading in the right general direction. We ended up going too far to the west, and the terrain suddenly became very steep. We had to walk up a bit and then traverse south east to reach the bealach with Glas Bheinn Mhor, the next mountain we were planning to do. The rocky climb up was much easier than the one up to Meall nan Eun. By the time we reached the summit there was a lot of low cloud, and unfortunately I set off in the wrong direction, simply following what looked like a path. I didn't even check my compass. I was just feeling tired and wanting to get down to a lower altitude, as it was cold up there. I noticed my mistake when the clouds briefly parted. I checked my GPS and found that we were going the wrong way. We had to climb back up about 80m and then traverse round to reach the correct path, which took an extra 20 minutes. It was 8pm when we got back to the car. It was a tiring, but very enjoyable day.
