15 Mountains in 2015 - #6: Beinn Bheula

Mountain number 6 in 2015 was a bit smaller than number 5, and was a solo affair. I regularly spend time in the Cowal area of Argyll, but somehow have never found the opportunity to climb any of the handful of mountains that are there. On Wednesday 29th July I had a free morning, so I got up early and took my chance. Beinn Bheula is the highest peak in the area and is normally (not that many people do it, I think) approached from the Loch Goil side. But I chose to approach from the south, largely to cut down my driving time.

I left the car at the Glenbranter forestry car park (with hindsight, I could have parked closer to the start of the route, but this was fine) and set off. It was a fine morning, although there was quite a lot of misty stuff around, covering all the nearby hills (and filling some of the valley too). 

The route I had planned took me up the forestry paths to the north of Invernoaden, and these proved to be a great way to get some elevation early on. 

Quite a lot of the forest has been felled since my map was printed, and a new forestry road (at about grid ref 994127) offered, or seemed to offer, a good route up the side of Carnach Mor, sooner than I had originally planned. But once among the recently felled forestry, the going got very rough and it proved an unpleasant 30 minutes or so, picking my way up the hillside. But having emerged from the forestry ground, the hill improved and provided tantalising glimpses (through the mist) of interesting looking crags above.

When I made it up among them, they were some pretty interesting rocks. I wish I had had time to explore, but this walk was against the clock, so I moved on.

Having reached the top of Carnach Mor, the peak of Beinn Bheula should have been in view for the first time, but it was hidden in some cloud, still lingering on the tops.

The bealach between Carnach Mor and Beinn Bheula is a very peaty, very soggy, very boggy trudge and I was glad when I finally made it onto the grassy slopes of Beinn Bheula proper.

By the time I reached the top, the cloud had lifted and I was rewarded with excellent views towards Loch Goil and the Arrochar Alps:

And also towards the Clyde:

After pausing to enjoy the view for a few minutes, I carried on along the ridge to Creag Sgoilte. Here's the view looking back to the summit of Bheula:

I descended more or less due south from the Creag, hoping to find the plane wreckage that is still to be found on that hillside, but sadly didn't manage to find anything in the knee high grass. So I kept going down the pathless (and boggy in bits) hillside, eventually reaching the Coire Ealt burn.

I then followed the forestry road back to Invernodan. The views across Loch Eck were stunning, and I would recommend this path as a walk to anyone, even if they don't attempt the mountain behind. On this stretch of my walk I passed a lone mountain biker - the only other person I saw on the entire walk!

All in all this took me about 5 hours. Here's the route:

And here's the elevation:

It was a good walk, which I greatly enjoyed, but I'm not sure I can totally recommend the route - the climb up to Carnach Mor was tough, the bealach boggy and the descent into Coire Ealt was rough, with no obvious best route. But if you like being alone on a mountain, then maybe this one is for you.

15 Mountains in 2015 - #2: Beinn Capuill

My second mountain in 2015 was much smaller than the first. About half the size really. And it certainly doesn't feature on Munro's list of mountains over 3000 feet, not even on Corbett's list of mountains over 2500 feet or Graham's list of mountains over 2000 feet. But if there was a list of Scottish mountains over 1500 feet, then somewhere near the end of that list would be Beinn Capuill.

Its not a well trodden path. Indeed, for much of the route that I chose there wasn't any path. And such paths as there were were hardly in good condition.

Anyway, here it is:

Thursday 19th February, Beinn Capuill.

The skyline above the small Argyll town of Tighnabruaich is dominated by a small hill, known locally as 'The Duin' ("doo-in"). Behind this, a bit higher up, are some very minor crags, marked on the OS map as 'Cnoc an Fhithich' which completely hide the 'peak' of Beinn Capuill from view from the town.

I've climbed Beinn Capuill, or something that sounds like "Ben Ach Apple" when the locals name it, before, about 14 or 15 years ago. That day was grey and windy and the ground was very, very boggy. That time, I took the obvious path, starting from the Duin. This time I decided to try a different route, and began by following the 'public right of way' marked as 'path to new road' from just above the boat yard at Rubha Ban. Clearly, not many people use this path. Here's some pics of the bridges on it:

and

and

Yes, not only was the third bridge almost completely ruined, it was also almost completely overgrown and also crossed into the middle of a muddy thicket that took quite a while to escape from! But eventually I made it up to the A8003 (the 'new road'; well, it was new in the 1960s) and up a few steps to the signposted viewpoint (looking SSW towards Ardlamont point):

And here's a panorama taking in all of Bute:

Here the path stopped. I crossed the rough ground above the viewpoint, climbed a deer fence, and scrambled up the hillside, to the top called Cnoc a' Chaisteil on the OS map. Then across a boggy, gnarly, bit of ground, across another deer fence (this one with a stile), and finally climbed up another rough slope to reach the plateau. Which looked a bit like this:

Finally, the top was in sight. But first there was an extremely boggy plateau to cross. There were occasional paths here, but none seemed to actually go anywhere useful, and all ended up in bogs, so there was nothing for it than to simply head across the ground in a vaguely straight line towards the top. Once across the plateau there was a steep, but much nicer, climb which zig-zagged between rock and small cliffs right to the top:

Success! Number 2 of 2015 in the bag. Here's the view from the top in three different directions:

Shortly after this it started sleeting, so I hastily made my way back down, this time following the direct 'path' to Tighnabruaich. At this point I saw a pretty big stag, but it had cleared off long before I got my camera out to take a pic. I also saw the remains of two sheep, both of which appeared to have taken unlucky tumbles off some small crags.

Looking back on the way down, Beinn Capuill looked more like a mountain than it had at any point on the way up:

And here's the view from Cnoc an Fhithich towards the Duin and Tighnabruaich:

Here's the map of the route, red on the way up, blue on the way back down:

I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending this walk to anyone. It is probably the boggiest walk I've ever done. But I enjoyed it nevertheless. Think I'll aim for something higher for my 3rd mountain of 2015.

15 Mountains in 2015 - #1: Ben Chonzie

My new year's resolution for 2015 is simple to express, possibly harder to achieve. The aim is to climb 15 mountains this year. Which is way more than I've ever climbed in a year before. But you may as well set your sights high, I guess. The mountains don't need to be Munros (although I hope a fair few are) and it doesn't matter if I've done them before. 

So here is #1 on the list. 

Sunday 1st Feb 2015. Ben Chonzie, near Comrie.

This is the first mountain I've climbed in proper snow, so I thought I'd better not go for anything too ambitious. Instead I opted for the mountain considered by some to be the most "boring" Munro of the lot, Ben Chonzie. I'd heard that there's basically a well marked path most of the way, then you follow the fence posts to the top. Sounds easy enough. And so it was, despite the snow.

But what a glorious day! For the most part there was little in the way of wind and not too much in the way of cloud. The conditions at the top were a bit different, but we'll get there in a bit. For now, here is a pic of me, just setting out at Glen Lednock:

And here, a few minutes further up the path is my walking companion and brother-in-law, Ewan:

In warmer weather, this 'path' is really a ford and you have to cross at the dam if you don't want wet feet. Not the case on this occasion:

The icicles on the fence beside the dam were perhaps the best icicles I've ever seen:

Looking South-South-West from Invergeldie dam:

From here, the path got a bit steeper and more snow covered, but there were occasional patches of bare ground for a spot of sunbathing:

Or to stop and check the map:

About 3/4 of the way up we left the path and branched out across a pathless snowfield, aiming for the ridge above:

Once on the ridge, the wind picked up and the temperature noticeably dropped, but it was a fairly easy climb to the top. So here's me at the top of Ben Chonzie, my 16th Munro, and the first of my 15 mountains in 2015:

Couldn't keep my gloves off for long! After about 30s I was losing sensation in my hands! We didn't stay too long at the top, but returned hastily along the ridge, looking for a sheltered spot for lunch. Along the way, we saw some amazing patterns in the snow, formed around the footprints of a walker on a previous day:

Here's a cairn and the view to the West (or North West) from the ridge:

In the end, the storm shelter proved a good place for a lunch break. Its been up several mountains with me before, but never actually used for its intended purpose before now:

The walk down was fairly easy, but we wished we'd thought to bring sledges. Or skis, like these people:

(There are three skiers in there if you look carefully.) Odd thing is, we saw about 5 or 6 skiers coming down the mountain, but not a single person carrying skis up the mountain...?

All in all, a great day for my first snow covered mountain. Must do one again. Here's the map of our route, showing red most of the way up, then blue. 7.7 miles in total, according to my phone, with a 2,681 foot elevation gain.

Details of the next of my 15 mountains coming soon...

Loony Dook in 3D

Having downloaded the 3D photo app for my phone, I thought I'd give it a try. Here's two pictures of this year's Loony Dook in 3D. Hope you've got a pair of Red/Cyan specs handy. Utterly pointless, but still...

Well, it could happen...

Traffic jammed

I had a meeting to go to in Glasgow last night. I and my colleague Guillermo set out from work at just after 5pm, reaching the Edinburgh City Bypass (A720) at Straiton Junction just about 5.30pm. The meeting was a stone's throw from M8 Junction 16 and, even at that time of night, shouldn't have taken more than about an hour to get to.

It was slow on the bypass, but within about 15 minutes we were onto the M8. Here we hit the first queue. I know it often queues between Hermiston Gait and Junction 2 at that time of night, so I wasn't too bothered. However, the queue extended the whole way to Livingston at Junction 3. So we passed Livingston at about 6:15pm, knowing we'd be a bit late for the meeting, but not that concerned. Then we hit what turned out to be the big queue. From Junction 3A to the middle of the roadworks after Junction 5 (about 10 miles) took about an hour. My new car can tell you all sorts of information about your journey - as we passed Harthill I noticed that my average speed for the whole journey was only 17mph. At Kirk O' Shotts the traffic flow stopped altogether. For half an hour. Average speed for the trip reduced to 13mph.

About 10 cars ahead of us, two 'motorway maintenance' trucks blocked the road. It turned out they had been repairing a hole in the carriageway which had (obviously) been slowing the traffic down for hours. So, at ten to eight, we emerged from the queue onto a totally clear road, but there was no point in continuing to the meeting. We were still 25 minutes away from the venue and there was only about half an hour of meeting left. So we went home.

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And as if that wasn't enough, my digibox failed to record Heroes on BBC3 last night (or rather it mysteriously stopped recording about 10 minutes into it), so I've a whole week to wait for the next episode. Bah!

Desktop of the week

Isle of Arran with Seagul. Taken from the ferry to Ardrossan about 20 minutes after leaving the island on Friday 13th April.

Machrie Moor

For the first fifteen years of my life I spent part of my Easter and summer holidays in Arran - staying with my Mum's Aunt May (my maternal grandfather's elder sister). In all those holidays I got to know (and love) much of the north part of Arran; Lochranza, Catacol, Pirnmill, Sannox, Corrie and as far down the east coast as Brodick, Lamlash and Whiting Bay. After Aunt May died (in 1985) we never went back to Arran. I have always meant to go back, but never quite made it. Until last week.

We had three days in Arran last week, in glorious sunshine. Nearly 22 years since the last time I had been there I did a whistle-stop tour of many of the places I remember from my childhood. Few of them have changed.

But I also had the chance to go to a few places that I had never been to before. I don't know why, but I had never been to Machrie Moor before, despite being quite interested in stone circles and the like. So I went and was very impressed.

I did a tour of all the stone circles on Mull a few years ago, and they were interesting, but nothing like as good as Machrie. The sheer quantity of prehistoric stone circles at Machrie is astounding. And some of the larger stones are still standing after 5000+ years.

All this by means of introduction... here are three of my photos:
This photo doesn't convey the size of the stone. If I was standing next to it, I wouldn't be half the height of it.

There are five stone 'circles' in this field. And archaeologists have uncovered evidence of others and several timber circles which predate them.

Once again, this photo doesn't convey the size of these. Suffice it to say that they're big and impressive.

Desktop of the week

I took this picture last Saturday. It is a view of Arran from the North, across Ostal Bay on the Cowal Peninsula. The mountain just left of centre is 'The Sleeping Warrior', possibly my favourite Scottish mountain (to look at; I have never climbed it) - if you follow the profile of the mountain from left to right it looks like a man lying down. From Lochranza (not so much in this photo) you can clearly see his helmet, his nose, his chin and the three buttons on his jacket. It looks particularly stunning as a windows desktop. If you want a higher resolution version of it for your own desktop (assuming that the 1024 x 768 version isn't big enough for you), just ask.