Over The Hill

If it's possible for any one mountain to carry a jinx, then surely Beinn an Lochain must be our jinxed mountain; for on a least it's last 3 appearances on the programme the walk has been cancelled due to weather conditions, leaving a number of us, Jimmy in particular, feeling that they would never get to the top of this one. And, given that we are currently in the middle of what is probably going to be the best summer for 20 years or so, this mountain still did it's best to dissuade us, as Sunday turned out to be, once again, wet and with extremely low cloud. We were however, more determined than ever, and so we were going to do it this time, whatever the weather.

Across the short boggy section from the car park and we were soon at the base of the north east ridge and the very obvious, and equally very eroded path which leads steeply uphill for almost the entire 700 metres of ascent with little respite. The prospect of the views so often read about from this hill was disappearing fast as the cloud began to block out all around us even at this relatively low level.

Living up to its reputation, the path was hard going, with plenty of short sharp mini scrambles requiring a little hand assistance to get up the broken rocks along the route. Although not as dramatic as it may be with clear visibility, there were also a number of spots where the path is quite exposed as it traverses above steep slopes, and at one point, especially for the descent you would certainly want to remember which is left, and make the necessary sharp turn, unless of course you are blessed with wings, the straight on option taking you directly into clear air.

At 901m, Beinn an Lochain was initially listed as a Munro, an error later corrected, and it now holds Corbett status, but, that by no means detracts from the grandeur of this mountain, obvious even with limited visibility. The summit was completely blanked out by mist, and so we were denied any views as we visited both of the humps, the one with the cairn, and onwards a short distance to the other, just to make sure that having gotten this far, at last, we were covered whichever top is the top, if you get what I mean!

We departed the summit almost immediately as it was really quite wet, and windy, and so we retraced our step until we found a reasonably sheltered spot just off the track in which to take our first break of the day. Lunch over, we made our descent back the way we had come, Beinn an Lochain having finally been "conquered" after so many cancelled attempts.

Great day Mairi - Thanks