Over The Hill

Finally, at last, our persistence has paid off and on the fifth attempt we have completed the double, An Caisteal and Beinn a'Chroin - Hurrah!

We even enjoyed the luxury of walking across the brand new pathway that has been constructed from the car park area to the sheep creep under the railway, thereby avoiding the old options of starting the walk with either soaking wet boots and gaiters from the bog, or stinking boots from the cattle muck depending on which route you took to the sheep creep. And things only got better, as the weather was just glorious as we walked in clear blue skies and bright sunshine; it certainly made up for all the past disappointments.

Nevertheless, no matter how good the weather, the hills are still as steep, and it was with some relief that we joined the main ridge just north of Sron Gharbh after climbing up through the rough grassy hillside from the track alongside of the River Falloch and were able to take a short break and start to appreciate the panorama offered by the superb clarity and visibility that accompanied the blue skies.

From Sron Gharbh our whole route lay stretched out in front of us, no problems with navigation today, unlike the almost white 0ut conditions we experienced last Saturday on Beinn an Dothaidh, we could relax and simply put one foot in front of the other and traverse the ridge taking in the delights of 360 degree views to distant horizons.

Remnants of snow still hung around some of the more sheltered troughs and gullies, but these did not present any problems, and even the "bad step" just below the rocky knoll was crossed without any difficulty, leaving us with a pleasant walk along the broadening ridge to the summit cairn on An Caisteal, A leisurely lunch on the summit plateau in glorious sunshine was a fitting reward for the first of our two objectives for today.

Ahead of us was arguably the harder section of the walk, which involved a very steep and rocky descent south from the summit of An Caisteal to the 805m Bealach Buidhe and its small lochan, sparkling in today's sunlight; followed by an equally steep, and slightly exposed ascent of the south facing buttress of Beinn a'Chroin which culminates in an exposed scramble up a small rock face to the summit plateau.

The summit plateau of Beinn a'Chroin lies in a west-to-east aspect covering a distance of 1.2 kilometres in length with 4 distinct tops - and until 1998 the eastern top at 940m was regarded as the highest; however, subsequent investigations resulted in the south western most of the 2 central tops being re-classified as the official summit, at a height of 942m. With such a dubious history, we were taking no chances of any future changes, and visited all 4 as we transited the plateau from west to east, sliding somewhat precariously down a large slab of snow into the 877m bealach which separates the eastern top from the other 3 to reach this now relegated top.

As if to remind us of our earlier failed attempts to reach this point, a rather ominous black cloud appeared out of nowhere and hovered directly above us for almost the entire time we were on the summit plateau and then just a quickly disappeared to be replaced by blue skies as we started the long, descent down the twisting and winding path on the northern ridge to the headwaters of the River Falloch at the head of Coire Earb.

Our good fortune held as we arrived in Coire Earb which is renowned for it boggy sections and often very wet crossing, as today we found it surprisingly much drier underfoot than anticipated, all of which just capped off a very enjoyable walk, in the most glorious weather.

Thank everyone - Great company - great day.