Over The Hill

Sunday evening and I was sitting at the computer trying to second-guess which route Ian would take us on for next Saturdays walk on The Brack in Glen Croe when I had a call from Lawrie to let me know that Ian was intending to tackle Beinn Achaladair, and possibly, Beinn a'Chreachain on Wednesday and would I like to join them. Well, as I had nothing better on offer, I said fine, and as the forecast for the week was a long settled period, with a high giving clear bright skies with temperatures on the low side, so things were looking good for Wednesday.

Tuesday was a cracking day, not a cloud in the sky and you could see for miles, roll on Wednesday!

Wednesday morning, bright and early, up with the lark, open the curtains, can't see a darn thing, cloud down to 300m. Ah well, that's life, just another day ahead and another mist shrouded hill to climb. We pulled off the A82 at the head of Loch Tulla and into the new tarmacked car park a few hundred metres along the Achallader Farm track to join two other groups; one group preparing for a days rock climbing and the other setting off on some navigation training; nice weather for some dead reckoning as the thick cloud base was now hovering around the 600 to 700 metres level.

From the car park, a sign directs you onto a rough path over the undulating lower hillside towards the footbridge over the West Highland Railway where it merges with the path alongside the Allt Coire Achaladair as it flows down from its source high up in the upper Coire Daingean. It's a narrow, rocky and sometimes boggy path that is nevertheless easy to follow, and you soon gain height and make good progress up into Coire Achaladair.

The conventional route is to continue on this path up to the bealach at 750m at the head of Coire Daingean before ascending the long southern ridge of Beinn Achaladair. It is however a long haul, and on a day like today, with the low cloud, we would not have the benefit of the extensive views over Rannoch Moor to make the long trek up the ridge worthwhile, and so we opted for a more direct, albeit somewhat steeper and harder ascent by heading directly for the high ridge line between the 1002m minor top and the summit cairn.

We chose a point around the 400m level from which to leave the main path and make a slight descent to cross the Allt Coire Achaladair, which was accomplished quite easily, despite the fact that I, for some unknown reason, decided to sit down mid-stream. Fortunately, I sat back onto the boulder I had just left, otherwise I would have had a very wet, and cold posterior for the rest of the walk. Once across the river and up the opposite bank, we took stock of our position and planned to head directly up the side of a very prominent gully which would bring us to the 700m level, and into the cloud base. From which point we would aim for the only gap in the very steep crags which line the upper reaches of the ridge to top the ridge at the low point between the 1002m top and the summit proper.

We were making good progress up the steep grassy slopes and then I hit the wall - something I had not done since my running days - my legs just felt like they had no strength in them, and I was about to call it a day and leave Ian, Lawrie and Kevin to go on while I returned to the car. However, Ian produced the magical "jelly babies", and after a mouthful of JB's, a banana and a short break we set off again reaching the head of the gully soon after.

We were now in cloud with limited visibility and at the lower snow line. For the next 250 metres of ascent we climbed on compass bearings up a very steep slope between areas of hard packed snow and ice covered rocks. We were able to cross the snow with care without resorting to putting on our crampons, although there were a few awkward sections where we had to kick toe holds to gain enough purchase to move on. Our navigation was spot on, and we topped the ridge exactly where we had planned. We were now off the steep hillside and onto the stony ridge, but snow and ice remained underfoot, and with it a very strong and cold wind now caught us as we continued up the ridge towards the summit. The atmosphere was so icy, that our rucksacks and jackets soon had a thin layer of ice covering them which cracked and broke as we walk along.

We reached a very small cairn, which at first we thought was the summit, but decided that the ridge was still ascending, and so continued for a short distance further along the ridge to the larger cairn which sits at the 1036m end of the ridge. With visibility almost nil, we had no view whatsoever, and stayed long enough just to take the obligatory summit photo before retracing our steps, back passed the smaller cairn and angled our descent slightly to the east of the ridge top in order to find a spot that would offer us some shelter for our first real stop of the day, and to take a welcome lunch break out of the wind.

We had already decided to make our descent down the same snow slab as our ascent, but would un-hook the ice axes and stay on the hard packed snow for the complete descent rather than take in the icy rocks as we deemed this the safer option, and as it turned out, the decent, although very steep was fairly straightforward, the ice axes offering the added security. As we were nearing the bottom of the snow slab, I heard a sliding sound from above and looked up to see Lawrie sliding down and just about to pass me. At first I though he had taken a fall, but no, seeing the grassy slopes below, he had decided to get in some ice axe arrest practice and was happily sliding and stopping himself at will with the ice axe.

Off the ice slab and back above the gully that had been our reference point on the ascend, it was than just a matter of continuing down, what was now steep grassy slopes towards the Allt Coire Achaladair and re-crossing the river, before picking up the hill path for our descent back down to the WHR and the car park.

It had been a great day, even with the very limited weather conditions, and Alan would have been pleased had he been with us as we even managed our "afternoon" tea just before our second river crossing - great day, great hill, great company - thanks Ian.