Over The Hill

In typical spring fashion, the weather has been very changeable from one day to the next; and with Wednesday showing promise of clear skies and light winds, it was an opportunity not to be missed. However, as it turned out, only myself and Alan were able to get out onto the hills, and we choose to tackle Beinn Bheula, as Alan, although having done it in the distant past, still needed this one for his "official" Corbett round, and I was very happy to retrace our steps from last November, when 7 of us had a very pleasant day on the hill.

A nice steady walk along the forest track soon saw us beginning the climb proper as we scrambled up the steep grassy slopes alongside Sruth Ban Waterfall to gain the northeast ridge of Beinn Bhreac, the 597m top lying below the much craggier and steeper north-south massif that is Beinn Bheula.

Atop Beinn Bhreac is a great spot to survey Beinn Bheula, which in reality comprises four distinct tops, running from north to south, with Creag a Bhuic, 739m, guarding the northern flank, before dipping, and then climbing the broad, flat slopes to Caisteal Dubh, at 779m, the highest point, and the location of a sound and still standing Trig Point. South of the summit, lie two further tops, Creag Sgoilte, 767m, and Ceann Garbh, 760m. In all, these four tops make a short, but very fine walk above the crags that line the eastern faces of Beinn Bheula.

From our vantage point on Beinn Bhreac we could see that there was still a large amount of snow lying the full length of the main gully which we had scrambled up on our previous visit, and, although we had our ice axes and crampons with us, decided not to take this route, but rather to scramble up the rocks on the northern side of the gully, as we could see a fairly clear route which would take us up some of the grassier ledges between the main crags, to the summit plateau just below the northern top of Creag a Bhuic.

Once on the plateau, there was virtually no snow underfoot, and we strolled along it's length, visiting each top, with a fairly lengthy pause on the main summit, to shelter on the leeward side of the wind and bask in the mid-day sun, and just enjoy the moment.

An easy descent from the southern top of Ceann Gharb and onwards across the grassy bealach, was followed by a slightly steeper descent down the slopes of Croc na Tri Criche to the peaceful, and rather beautiful Lochan nan Cnaimh, surrounded on all but one side by the grassy slopes of it's neighbouring hills. Beyond the lochan, we skirted the forest boundary until meeting an area, now cleared of trees, and made the short descent through broken tree stumps to rejoin the forest track for an easy return to Lettermay.

Brilliant weather, although it has to be said, at times it got quite breezy, and some darker clouds did appear intermittently throughout the day, but overall, the forecast lived up to it's promise of a fine day on the hills.

Thanks Alan, great company as usual.