A lovely sunny day. snow from the road.
4 of us set out, but our friend got word his wife was ill so turned back after half an hour. the track up through the forest towards beinn a chleibh was deep snow, in some cases waist deep, and underneath was lots of wet deep bog. it took a long time to negotiate the forest.
once up onto the first munro of the day, attention turned to the huge slog that was to follow up the n/w slope of ben lui. the snow was in an avalanchable state, and we scuttled from the odd rock outcrop to the next. naivety kept us going, if I knew then what I know now, id have not ascended this route up.
we did however get away with it, almost swimming at times to get through the snow.
the summit of lui was massively corniced and the descent route warranted the use of crampons...for 15 minutes!
the following 2 munros were pretty straight forward with the snow being a little more scoured in places. descending from beinn dubhcraig the track was pretty sketchy and we ended up picking a less than desirable line down towards the river.
the second river crossing of the day was swift with a race on to get to the pub for dinner. and a mighty fine steak it was too!!
well earned after an 11.5 hour day, back to my lovely cold tent.
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.
