Our route takes the zigzags up the front of the central peak Gearr Aonach and descends down the nearest hill Beinn. Fhada.
On the other hand if you like a bit of excitement doing a top mountain route that will stick in your memory for the rest of your years read on.
We had travelled up to Glencoe to try
and catch up the tail end of a glorious settled spell of weather,
staying at the FRCC hut in Kinlochleven. The hut already had two
occupants, one of the best things about staying in these places is
the characters you meet. Today was no exception, we got talking to
'Derek' and his lady friend, he told us that his greatest claim to
fame was that he had done ALL the 4000m peaks in the Alps. I
mentioned that one of my mates had also done the 4000m peaks, a guy
he also knew once we had mutual friends we got on like a house on
fire.
Next morning we
were away early, weather was dry, some blue sky with mist swirling
around, our objective was to do the Snakes and Ladders zigzag on the
Nose of Gearr Aonach then walk the ridge contour round to the Lost
Valley path then climb Stob Coire Sgreamhach, my last Munro in
Glencoe, then play it by ear.
After a couple of
minor dead ends we found the grade one scramble snakes path we then
took another excursion out onto the main face to the right and found
a superb variation which led us up to the grade three ladder scramble
which in turn led to the escape path under the East Face of Gearr
Aonach.
All to soon we
reached the main ridge leading up to Stob Coire nan Lochan which we
avoided by contouring left. This took us into some close proximity to
some big bellowing beasts, fortunately they were more interesting in
rutting each other so ever so quietly we sneaked past.
Some interesting
ground to us across to the main Lost valley path up a badly eroded
path to the col and onto Stob Coire Sgreamhach.
The cloud cleared
for the briefest moment we caught site of the Beinn Fhada ridge, most
impressive, we were sold on the idea, this has got to be one of the
best ridges in Glencoe. On the way up Gearr Aonach I had been scoping
the nose of Beinn Fhada which looked very steep BUT to the east of the
main nose it looked more forgiving. So we skirted the main face down
very steep broken ground, exciting stuff.
A quick pint in the
Clachaig before going back to see my new bestest mate 'Derek'.
Gearr Aonach above the Lost Valley Path
The initial scramble up the Zigzags
Back on the grade one section
Todays munro is the top left peak
Lokking down the Beinn Fhada Ridge
No comments:
Post a Comment