Bynack More

(I’m going a bit out of order here; yesterday’s post about Ben Macdui has photos and I don’t have a good enough signal to post it today. It will hopefully follow tomorrow.)

Thursday 20 August

About 1730 or 1800 last night, rain was seen approaching. Colin spent the night rocking gently (even though we were face on to the wind) and with a gentle pitter-pattering as the forecast front passed through. By this morning, there was blue sky to be seen, but the wind hadn’t died down as much as I would have liked; nor was it coming from the right direction.

Whilst we had decided on Bynack More for today, decisions still needed to be made. Mick and I have often pondered whether there’s a formula which would describe at what point the effort of going straight up a steep hillside equals the effort of taking a longer route with a more gentle gradient. Today’s quandary was similar: whether to take the short route which involved going up, down, up, down (and vice versa on the return), or whether to take the option which was approaching twice as long, but which simply went up. It was the thought of the final, substantial ‘up’ on the return leg of the short option that did it for me; I voted for the easy option, which was the longer walk, starting from Glenmore.

It was a decision with which I am happy, even in hindsight. It took us through places we’ve not walked before and I rather liked it. Moreover, I’m not one for objecting to easy walking, and this was just that, all being on tracks and good paths. The only thing that was throwing a bit of a spanner in the works was that headwind; oh, and the low cloud.

By the time we got to the top all we could see was the inside of a cloud and the wind was strong enough to prevent any clambering over the rocks. It was a shame really, as it strikes me that this top, with all its rocky tors, would be best done in good weather.

Any thoughts of visiting the nearby Corbett, or performing a loop, were abandoned in the face of the disappointing conditions (what a fair weather walker I am!) and we simply retraced our steps, meeting on our way a triumphant Gold D of E group from Northern Ireland, who were a couple of miles away from finishing their expedition.

It was an enjoyable walk (gorgeous heather, just coming into flower!) even with the wind and the cloud-bound summit, but it’s one that I may have to repeat sometime, so as to appreciate the hill properly.

The stats were 14.1 miles with 3000’ of ascent.

Ben Lawers Ridge (2)

Monday 17 August

We picked the wrong day for our first foray onto the Ben Lawers ridge! Yesterday we were in cloud for three of our five tops. Today we awoke to clear blue skies. Never mind, we were off up onto the ridge again, although this time to the west side to visit the final two Munros up there, Meall Corranaich and Meall a’Choire Leith.

Starting out from the big cairn on the hillside at the north end of Lochan na Lairige, an engineered path took us the first few hundred metres, before it suddenly stopped at the remains of a bulk bag of gravel, which suggested that maybe there had once been intentions to surface a bit more of its length. There was, however, a trodden line which continued on the ground, even if we did occasionally lose it temporarily at one of the many boggy bits.

Even though a few clouds were forming, the sun shone down on us and there was barely a breath of wind. The lack of wind wasn’t necessarily a good thing: the midges were out, even on the summits.

Yesterday we stood on that lump behind me. Couldn’t see a thing at the time!

Walking along the lovely ridge between the two tops

Both of these hills proved to be excellent viewpoints over to where we had been yesterday – and in every other direction too.

Had I troubled myself to make some sandwiches to take on this outing (we decided we’d be back at Colin in time for lunch) then I would have extended the outing to nip up the Marilyn Meall nam Maigheach, but I hadn’t, so I didn’t. I did consider, over lunch, going back out to visit it this afternoon, as we were so close and the weather so lovely, but in the end I decided my time would be better spent in a campsite laundry, washing some of the bog out of my trousers (carelessly, I only brought one pair of walking trousers with me; maybe I didn’t expect to find myself sitting in bogs so often!).

This little outing, which was easier than I expected and more interesting than Mick expected (so a winner all round, really) covered 6.4 miles with 2500’ of ascent.

Ben Lawers Ridge (1)

Sunday 16 August

Having allocated today to the main section of the Ben Lawers ridge, based on a fine weather forecast, it was disappointing to wake up to find the hills shrouded, particularly as we’d woken to clear tops yesterday morning, when they were all supposed to be covered. I declared that it would soon burn off and that we would have views by the time we got to the top of Ben Lawers itself.

Beinn Ghlas was the first summit on the ridge and getting up there was straightforward enough, even if we did have to stop four times to adjust what we were wearing (‘too hot!’, ‘getting wet!’, ‘too sweaty!’, ‘too cold’!). After having passed a grand total of two people (one going up, one coming down), we were surprised to find ourselves on a pointy bit, with no more up to be seen; neither of us had calibrated our altimeters before we set out and we were both expecting another 50m of up. Always a bonus when that happens!

Jumper, jacket, hat and gloves. I’d been perfectly warm in a t-shirt earlier!

My hopes for a view from Ben Lawers, which was the next top along the ridge, were overly optimistic. There was still nothing to be seen, but we paused there anyway for a quick snack before moving on to An Stuc.

Murk atop Ben Lawers

Half way there it looked like things were brightening up and sure enough, suddenly we could see our next objective before us.

Oooh, look! We can see something!

It stayed within sight all the way until we were about twenty paces from its highest point, when the cloud rolled in again. Then it started to rain – just in time for us to tackle the scramble down the other side. Neither of us exhibited great elegance in getting down, but we each made it in one piece, which is the most important thing.

Mick being elegant.

Two runners passed us, heading the other way, as we started up to our next summit (Meall Garbh); we paused and watched them head up An Stuc, which they did far more elegantly than we had come down it. Then, finally, the weather cleared. In fact, it got better and better over the rest of the day, such that by dusk the skies were clear.

Looking back to An Stuc – that’s quite steep and craggy!

My objective for the day had only been for the first four tops along this ridge (four Munros, two of which were also Marilyns), as the walk back to the Ben Lawer’s ex-Visitor-Centre car park was long enough without adding on another couple of miles by taking in the final lump on the ridge: Meall Greigh. Mick had always thought we would do the final hill, and he was right. As it was only an extra 170m of ascent, over the course of a mile, once we were at the col, it seemed silly not to pop up it. First, though, we paused for lunch, during which time seven people passed us, heading the other way. They were the last people we saw until we got back to the car park (which was, again, heaving, making it seem odd that we had only seen 11 people all day).

Atop Meall Greigh, from where there was blue sky to be seen and a view

Looking down on Loch Tay again, but this time without me marring the view

The walk back was long. The track along which we started wasn’t of a fantastic quality, but it sped us along. Then it ceased to be useful to us and the next two miles or so were spent in a contouring yomp along a steep hillside, which was really quite unpleasant with the feet constantly at such a sideways angle. We were happy when finally the car park came into sight and the ground flattened out.

We were half a mile away, and all the tricky stuff was behind us, when my pole got stuck in some mud, coming to an abrupt stop as momentum kept my body moving forward. I duly tripped over it, fell and rolled, which saw me come to a halt with my backside in a pool of filthy bog water. Again. I have, in fact, only fallen over twice this week and the outcome has been the same both times. Still, wet pants are better than an injury and it was only another hop, twenty skips and a few jumps until I was able to change into something dry.

Our bodies felt well and truly exercised by the time we stopped, having covered 14.3 miles with 5300’ of ascent.

Taken from Colin at 7pm, looking back to where we’d been, with not a cloud in the sky. It was a pretty good spot to spend a couple of nights – very quiet and with cracking views all around.

Meall nan Tarmachan

Saturday 15 August

Another lazy day! You’d think we were on holiday, the way we’re lounging around.

Meall nan Tarmachan was our objective and it was lunchtime by the time we squeezed Colin into an available parking space and set off up it. Just down the road, the Ben Lawers Visitor Centre car park (which is what I’ll call it even though there is no Visitor Centre any more; in fact, the car park is also not where either of us remembered it being) was brimming – the combination of a good weather forecast and it being the weekend.

With a made-path leading all the way to the summit of our hill it was about as easy an outing as you’ll get walking up a Munro. We were at the top in just over an hour, where we chatted for a while with a couple of great chaps. The opening of the conversation involved the revelation to them that there were not standing on top of Ben Lawers. “Really?” said the chap. “It’s the third time I’ve been up here and I always thought this was Ben Lawers!”.

About half of the gaggle of people atop the summit were doing the obvious and excellent looking walk, along the ridge. We were being particularly lazy, with our plan encompassing having lunch and walking back down. However, the cold wind stopped us from lunching on the top; we thought we’d just drop back down a short way, out of the wind, first.

That was all very well in theory, but then it started to rain. Then it started to hail. Suddenly a deferment of lunch seemed the best choice.

We had nearly dried off again by the time we were a quarter of an hour away from Colin, when another approaching shower was seen. We ran, arriving back at our start point just as the first spots were felt.

Tomorrow we’ll try to be a bit less lazy.

Meall Buidhe

Friday 14 August

Looking out of the window upon waking this morning it was to the sight of cloud just covering the lowest tops. We went back to bed with our books and gave it an hour to clear. An hour later, that cloud was lower. An hour later still, even the valley was misty. Our plan to visit the Corbett of Stob a’Choin was abandoned, on the basis that the effort that would be required to walk up it demanded some reward from the top.

I pored over the maps for a suitable alternative (something small and easy) and found that there are few small and easily accessible Marilyns in these parts. I did, however, spot that Meall Buidhe looked perfect for the conditions: we would park at 950’, take a gently meandering track up to a mast at 1920’, which would leave us with just 0.8 of a mile of distance to reach the summit at around 2350’. Admittedly, the shaping of the contours for that final 0.8 of a mile did scream ‘ROUGH’ and ‘WET’, but overall it looked very much like a good balance of effort versus reward.

The bonus was that, whilst there was low cloud all around, we stayed in a clear pocket for the entirety of our ascent (the final bit of which was exactly as promised: rough and wet). Alas, as we wandered around the summit, in came the cloud and our descent back to the mast was undertaken with compasses in hands.

The track sped us back to our start point, and off to Killin we tootled, after a very modest outing totalling 5 miles with 1350’ of ascent.

(Incidentally:

1) After the number of tractors met on the very narrow 6-miles of road back out of Glen Voil this morning, Mick may well be of the opinion that we should have stayed in Glen Voil until we’d exhausted the hills best accessed from there. As it stands, we’re going to have to negotiate that seen-better-days, long single-track-with-passing-places again sometime to finish the job.

2) On arrival in Killin, and having emptied my daypack so that I could use it to carry groceries back to Colin from the Co-op, I discovered, tucked down in the water-bladder-pocket, a map of the area surrounding Fussen (the Fussen that lies in southern Germany). It seems that I have carried that map around with me on every single walk I’ve been on with my daypack since July last year. That’s a lot of walks. It must be the most travelled map in my collection!)

Beinn Tulaichean and Cruach Ardrain

Thursday 13 August

I slept so soundly that I didn’t even hear a vehicle arrive into the car park sometime soon after dawn. The owner returned just as we were setting out, toting paragliding gear. It turned out that in his world it was an evening outing - he’d finished his nightshift, looked at the weather forecast and couldn’t resist going to jump off a hill before heading to bed. It was a fine day for it too, with just some high level cloud in an otherwise blue sky.

Our route planning today was easy. With both of our objectives being Munros, we simply did what our Munro book suggested, at least on the ascent, as we headed up grassy slopes to go over Beinn Tulaichean…

Atop Beinn Tulaichean

…down to the dip of the ridge and up to Cruach Ardrain (which is a Marilyn as well as a Munro; the first top was only a Munro).

We hadn’t seen any sign of another person out and about until this point, but looking back to our first top, a couple of chaps were seen standing on the summit. We passed them as we made our way back down to the col, by which time another person was silhouetted by the summit cairn. Another two followed suit whilst we lunched on the ridge.

Our Munro book would have had us climb back up Beinn Tulaichean (which admittedly was only 80m of extra upness) and retrace our steps back to our start point, but it seemed far more sensible to us to drop off the side of the ridge, to pick up the track which runs down the Inverlochlarig Glen.

Yomping through deep, lush grass seemed a bit alien to us in such a location, probably because it’s so rare that we visit Scotland in the months when grass grows. I’m sure all the sheep were enjoying it immensely … and there were a lot of sheep.

A bit of thicker cloud had come in by the time we got back to Colin (thwarting for a second night any chance of seeing the meteor shower – well, that and the fact that we were asleep by the time it was fully dark!) but it had been a tremendous, clear day for this outing. 8.2 miles had been covered, with 3300’ of ascent.

Stob Breac

Wednesday 12 August

After quite a bit of driving (for Mick, at any rate; for no good reason, I was battling to stay awake) and quite a reasonable smattering of stops for tea-drinking and meals, we arrived at Inverlochlarig, at the road end in Glen Voil, at around 2.30pm, whereupon we neatly positioned Colin into one of the free spaces in the car park, with no intention of moving him again for a couple of days.

More tea was drunk and another snack eaten whilst Mick watched a Royal Navy Sea King land about 100 yards away and I looked at a map, specifically at the Marilyn whose summit lay just 1.25 miles (as the crow flies) from where we were parked. The way I was going to take us up (and down) it looked steep on the map and even steeper looking out of the window, so I reckoned with a total distance of 5 miles and with 1750’ of ascent, it would take us around to 3 hours to complete the outing. Perfect then to squeeze it in before tea-time!

At 3.15 we set out and a handful of minutes later I looked at the map and saw that we were walking along the wrong track. Mick, very helpfully, suggested that looking at the map before we set out would have been wise, and around we turned. Trying again in the right direction, the extra distance from the error was soon recovered by opting not to follow a meandering track to cover the first 80m of ascent, but to take a direct line. The only downside of the direct line (other than the gradient) was three extra deer fences, only one of which had a crossing point. The fourth deer fence we would have had to negotiate anyway, and as it happened we hit it at a point where a section was down, allowing someone with legs about an inch longer than mine to step over it relatively comfortably.

Steep. That’s what the ascent was, although we didn’t really appreciate quite how steep until we’d visited the summit, admired the surroundings (really quite lovely!) and set off back down the way we had come. Jeez, that was a steep descent! Not in a ‘slip and you’ll die’ sort of way, but in the way that made the knees complain and the thighs scream (even after all the practice we’ve had recently on GR10 descents).

By the time we made it back down to the track (the one we’d shunned on the way up) we’d both slipped over on the damp grass. In my case, both feet slipped oh-so-gently out from beneath me to deposit my rear end straight into a pool of water. The fall was harmless; the resulting wet pants uncomfortable.

Thinking that the knees would never forgive us if we continued on the direct line down the hillside, we did take the meandering track for an indirect return to Colin, where we arrived at 18.10, our appetites well and truly worked up for tea. We had covered 4.6 miles with the expected 1750’ of up.

Shutlingsloe

Tuesday 11 August

Nine days had given us enough time to sort out stuff that needed to be done at home, so Tuesday was down in the diary as ‘Home to Scotland, via Leicester’.

The Leicester visit went smoothly, even if a touch expensively (Colin was due a service) and I discovered that Mick wasn’t exaggerating when he said that the chosen servicing establishment was ‘quite a long walk’ away from the city centre. Pounding the pavements with some purpose, we managed to get there, drink tea and eat second breakfast and quickly browse a bookshop before needing to turn around and walk back. A total of 7.5 miles of pavement were covered, although it would have been less if we’d looked at a map and taken a slightly more direct line on the way in.

Off to Scotland then!

We didn’t take the most direct route to get there, as en-route we had arranged to meet Martin for a quick jaunt up Shutlingsloe – a hill that I’ve long had on my to-do list yet had previously omitted to visit.

Looking like a club outing (nowt like turning up to an event to find everyone’s dressed the same; for this walk Martin and I were wearing matching 2015 TGO Challenge t-shirts and Mick was wearing the 2009 model), off we set with Martin leading the way. Apparently, he’s been up there a couple of times before…

Chatting merrily about the Pyrenees (Martin has just returned from completing the GR11), the ground was soon covered and on the summit we tried hard to sell the TGO Challenge to a trio wielding a good old-fashioned Polaroid camera, before checking out the topograph and establishing that on this clear day we could see far further afield than was covered by said topograph.

Then, chatting some more on the subject of the Pyrenees, back down we went. Martin had a very tasty sounding tea to cook and pub quiz to attend (did you win Martin?) whereas we thought we’d see how far north we could get before bed-time (South Lakes was the answer).

I measured the outing at 3.9 miles with 900’ of ascent. The ascent figure surprised me – it didn’t feel like that much – it must have been all the chatting!

GR10 Days 17-19: Photos

Day 17:

The morning of Day 17 saw us walking under another mizzly sky, which persisted until we paused for elevenses, whereupon, with incredible speed, the cloud lifted and we could see the valley into which we were about to descend. I’m sure that must have also been a benefit for all of the paragliders jumping off the hillside and aiming for a landing field next to the lake (at one point we spotted eleven in the sky all at the same time). Before we could tackle the descent down to Loudenvielle, we had to negotiate a gathering of very pretty cows and calves who had decided that the path was the most comfortable place to be:

We were supposed to end our day at Loudenvielle, but when we got there decided to extend it to Germ, and when we got there we decided to extend it to Cabane d’Ourtiga. The bit just after Germ, once the bulk of the ascent was dealt with, gave us a nice contouring path from which to appreciate the surroundings:

Suddenly, part way up the Val d’Aube (in which sits the Cabane d’Ourtiga) there was a scene of devastation before us. This doesn’t really capture the way the trees had been uprooted, snapped and thrown down the steep hillside:

The path may not have been cleared and for a little while we struggled to follow its path, but once back on track we found that someone has been out with a couple of tins of paint to indicate which trees need to be stepped over:

The area of devastation was small, in the grand scheme of the area, and soon it was forgotten as we reached the majesty of the head of the valley::

When Mick was expressing his doubts at finding a good pitch, I suggested maybe next to the Cabane would be a good spot. Mick replied that he didn’t even know where the cabane was as he’d seen no sign of it. He’d been so distracted by what was ahead of him that he hadn’t looked right, where it was sitting as clear as day. It was a very good pitch next to it too … just a pity that the arrival of four chaps to spend a night in the cabane and to have a fire outside caused us to pack away and move on:

Day 18:

Lac d’Oo: so named because people come upon it and say ‘Ooooh’? It’s certainly worthy of an ooh, particularly with those waterfalls. The one captured in this shot is, apparently, 273m high:

The waterfall below was a comparatively small one, but in this snap is put into perspective by the presence of me, crossing at the bottom of it:

It was only from up high that the magnificent shape of this bowl could be captured on camera (or at least, on my little point-and-click):

And then we walked back into the cloud. Harrumph. If I’m going to go to the effort of walking up high, then I really would prefer to see my surroundings:

Having collected the minimum amount of water that would see us through the night on our way up the pass from Lac d’Oo (it was a long pull up there; didn’t want to carry extra water unnecessarily…), on the basis that we would almost certainly pass more later on, we went on to kick ourselves when all other streams were dry. We knew there was a chance they would be, but every single other time we had collected lots of water at the last reliable water source, we had gone on to pass more. We ended up walking on further than intended (making this our highest ascent day, totalling 6500’) in our search for more water, and I did actually dance a little happy dance when I spotted the tell-tale moisture on the ground surrounding this piped spring…

… as it happened, we ended up not using that water. Even so, when we woke up to a thunder storm and a bit of a miserable day, we also found ourselves rather pleased that we had walked on the day before. In fact, we kicked ourselves that we hadn’t put in 45-minutes more effort and made it to Superbagneres.

Day 19:

Day 19 was the first day of the trip that we broke out the waterproof over-trousers. It was also the only day that I didn’t get the camera out. With hindsight, if I had reached for the camera to take this snap below then I probably would have noticed that a) I hadn’t sealed the bag it was in; and b) it was getting wet. As it was, when the cloud parted (quite a few times we got a burst of visibility where we would find ourselves in a gap between two layers of cloud, then with unfeasible rapidity, it would close back in again) it was the phone, safely covered in a waterproof case, which was called into service:

Cake! I’ve not included any cake photos in this series of posts, which is negligent as there was cake eaten. This was the last one of the trip … which was probably also the most unattractive, but it was very tasty and soon despatched. The then-recently-deceased camera is there for scale.

The camera which took the vast majority of the snaps during this trip didn’t recover from its dunking on the last day. Considering it was 6 years old, had taken 9498 photos and had never once been kept in a protective case (it generally lived either loose in my pocket or in my hip-belt pocket; when it rained I put it in a ziploc type bag in the same place), it had a good innings.

GR10 Days 13-16: Photos

Day 13:

Enough pretty outdoors photos! Let’s have some indoors ones. This set are from our one-star hotel in Cauterets, which, contrary to my first negative impressions, actually met our needs perfectly. If you can overlook the unmade bed and the kit lying around (I must have taken it upon departure), you’ll see that the main room was a bit spartan:

The second room was huge – you can just about see a table and one of the chairs over on the right, in front of the big window:

Whilst the whole place was very dated, I’m glad that the bedrooms didn’t boast the same flooring as all of the stairs and corridors:

Talking of dated, this was the fire notice on the back of the door (dated October 1973). I particularly liked the ‘Be sure to tell the floor attendant about the fire’. I suspect it has been many years (decades?) since this hotel last saw a floor attendant! They obviously have very good cleaners, though, as our room was spotless.

Day 15:

This one is purely for my sister. Turning off the road over the Col de Tourmalet, I couldn’t resist a photo of a Tin Tray:

The walk up to the Col de Madamete (the highest Col on the route if sticking to the Cicerone guide) was spectacular:

That shown above was a bouldery bit, but after every few hundred yards of climbing we generally came across lovely flat grassy meadows, as you can see in this snap:

We had a few very good pitches, but this one must just have sneaked the prize for the most spectacular location (by Cabane d’Aygues Cluses, below the Col du Madamete):

Day 16:

6am in the most spectacular camping location, there’s a glow in the distant sky and a blanket of cloud in the valley below us (the grey in the bottom right corner is a bit of fly sheet, again denoting that this was a ‘from my bed’ shot):

Alas, by the time we set off, that cloud had come up to meet us and we set out walking on a compass bearing, but by the time we reached the pass we were up above it again:

Stunning spot for second breakfast, was that pass. Alas, we soon descended back into the cloud and stayed in it for much of the day…

… but not all of the day, as there was an interlude of excellent visibility around lunchtime…

…before it the cloud came back in again, as we walked along a newly made path on a walk that the Cicerone guide compared with the Lake District. We have no idea on what basis that comparison was made, as we didn’t see very much:

We did see a very large flock of sheep, though, which were imaginatively decorated. If you look beyond the three bearing ‘LS’ on their buttocks, the ones in front have love hearts. Others had clover leaves.

They also had been shorn with the exception of varying amounts of fleece left on their backs. There’s one in this shot that has a big nobble of fleece on its shoulders, which had been painted bright green and yellow: