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Another trip to the hills on Saturday - this time to Dalmally to climb Beinn a'Cleibh (916m), which is the fourth in a chain of four Munros stretching from Tyndrum to Dalmally - Beinn Dubhcraig, Ben Lui, Ben Oss and Beinn a'Chleibh, for those of you keeping track (ben/beinn is Gaelic for "mountain", in case you were wondering).
The first time we attempted the chain, we climbed up Dubhcraig by what turned out on subsequent inspection to be one of the steepest routes, in driving hail - we were glad of our sunglasses. On the top, we spent the best part of 45mins blundering about in the mist with the GPS set trying to find the summit. Having found something with a cairn on it at the correct altitude, we decided not to bother with the rest, and went back to Tyndrum.
The second time we tried was last winter, and this time we had an almost perfect day - sunshine, not too cold, crisp snow. Beautiful views. We climbed to the saddle between Ben Dubhcraig and Ben Oss, decided that since we were running a bit late we'd not bother with Ben Dubhcraig again, and climbed Ben Oss and then Ben Lui. Ben Lui, we discovered, is rather steep, and walking in foot-deep snow gets pretty tiring. I was pretty wiped out by the time we reached the (spectacular) summit. Looking at our watches, we realised that we were in serious danger of missing our train back to Glasgow - there's only one train, and it leaves Dalmally at seven pm. So we ignored Ben a'Chleibh, and ended up running the last six km in just over an hour - not so bad, you might think, but you try doing it after you've been walking through snow for eight hours and 30 km. We made our train by about five minutes.
So this time, we were just going to do the only one we hadn't done. We had with us a visiting PhD student from Braunschweig, who said she'd done some walking in the Harz mountains. Unfortunately, she hadn't brought her gear with her. We could have lent her some stuff if we'd known, but not much - we couldn't have lent her boots, for instance.
It started raining while we were in the train, and didn't stop until we'd done the whole trip and were recovering in the pub. It was cold. It was windy - especially at the top, where we were having to lean about 30 degrees into the wind. It wasn't the worst weather I've seen on a walking trip, but it wasn't far off. We felt rather guilty for bringing our guest out on such a rotten day - they're really not that common. Anyway, we have now climbed Benn a'Chleibh! This brings me up to 53 Munros, and Philipp up to 68. I was actually pretty comfortable for most of the trip - all the shiny kit I've acquired over the last couple of years seems to have been worth it :-) The boots (still the same pair) kept my feet dry right up until the point when I stepped in a river and the water went over the top of the boots. I'd also bent my rucksack frame (which is designed for this) so it was concave, and I had a ventilation gap between my back and the rucksack, as seems so popular these days. It had the desired effect, but my back felt a bit sore afterwards - possibly bad packing, but maybe the abuse of the frame didn't help. And I brought the ice-axe, and didn't even take it out of the holders - we saw virtually no snow all day, even right at the top. Worrying stuff - on our last trip last year, the snowline started at about 500m.
The first time we attempted the chain, we climbed up Dubhcraig by what turned out on subsequent inspection to be one of the steepest routes, in driving hail - we were glad of our sunglasses. On the top, we spent the best part of 45mins blundering about in the mist with the GPS set trying to find the summit. Having found something with a cairn on it at the correct altitude, we decided not to bother with the rest, and went back to Tyndrum.
The second time we tried was last winter, and this time we had an almost perfect day - sunshine, not too cold, crisp snow. Beautiful views. We climbed to the saddle between Ben Dubhcraig and Ben Oss, decided that since we were running a bit late we'd not bother with Ben Dubhcraig again, and climbed Ben Oss and then Ben Lui. Ben Lui, we discovered, is rather steep, and walking in foot-deep snow gets pretty tiring. I was pretty wiped out by the time we reached the (spectacular) summit. Looking at our watches, we realised that we were in serious danger of missing our train back to Glasgow - there's only one train, and it leaves Dalmally at seven pm. So we ignored Ben a'Chleibh, and ended up running the last six km in just over an hour - not so bad, you might think, but you try doing it after you've been walking through snow for eight hours and 30 km. We made our train by about five minutes.
So this time, we were just going to do the only one we hadn't done. We had with us a visiting PhD student from Braunschweig, who said she'd done some walking in the Harz mountains. Unfortunately, she hadn't brought her gear with her. We could have lent her some stuff if we'd known, but not much - we couldn't have lent her boots, for instance.
It started raining while we were in the train, and didn't stop until we'd done the whole trip and were recovering in the pub. It was cold. It was windy - especially at the top, where we were having to lean about 30 degrees into the wind. It wasn't the worst weather I've seen on a walking trip, but it wasn't far off. We felt rather guilty for bringing our guest out on such a rotten day - they're really not that common. Anyway, we have now climbed Benn a'Chleibh! This brings me up to 53 Munros, and Philipp up to 68. I was actually pretty comfortable for most of the trip - all the shiny kit I've acquired over the last couple of years seems to have been worth it :-) The boots (still the same pair) kept my feet dry right up until the point when I stepped in a river and the water went over the top of the boots. I'd also bent my rucksack frame (which is designed for this) so it was concave, and I had a ventilation gap between my back and the rucksack, as seems so popular these days. It had the desired effect, but my back felt a bit sore afterwards - possibly bad packing, but maybe the abuse of the frame didn't help. And I brought the ice-axe, and didn't even take it out of the holders - we saw virtually no snow all day, even right at the top. Worrying stuff - on our last trip last year, the snowline started at about 500m.