Over The Hill

Stepped out the van and ascended 428m over the first kilometre at an average incline of 40%; wonder what the rest of the day has in store?

Tuesday evening and the weather for Wednesday was looking very good indeed, so the phones were buzzing, but everyone other that Alan and I seemed to have other plans for the Wednesday, and so, here we were, just the two of us driving up Glen Massan, at the southern end of Loch Eck, towards the farm and small parking spot at Stonefield, with Beinn Mhor our target for today.

Booted up and, bidding farewell to a couple about to spend the day fly-fishing in the River Massan, we made our way across a small enclosure and then over a rather old and broken fence, at which point any thoughts of an easy ascent rapidly disappeared. The only way ahead was to pick our way between the old, gnarled tree stumps, bushes and layers of dead branches and bracken that lay in our path as we climbed steeply uphill in a narrow strip of open ground flanked by forest to our right, and a large felled area to our left.

We crossed the fenceline on the forest boundary at around the 300m height, and exchanged the rough scrub and undergrowth for deep grassy tufts and rocky outcrops, the one thing that did remain constant though, was the relentless incline. We choose our route as best we could, sometimes around and sometimes directly over the rocky crags, and more than once I felt myself feeling rather like a mountain goat with four limbs clinging onto dodgy ground and my teeth chewing the grass. However, once onto the broad grassy ridge on Creachan Beag (547m) with it's views south over Dunoon and the Firth of Clyde together with the clear blue sky and sunshine seemed a reasonable trade-off for all our efforts.

The plan was for us to continue along the ridge, taking in Clach Bheinn and two other minor tops on the way to Beinn Mhor. And so, after a short, and well earned break, we set off on the much gentler ridgeline towards Creachan Mor, a small indistinct top at 570m which offers some wonderful views of the very steep and scarred southern slopes of Clach Bheinn, and from which we could clearly see our obvious route over the broad grassy bealach below the curving ridgeline towards the base of Clach Bheinn.

From Creachan Mor we followed the natural curve of the ridge as we descended towards the grassy bealach directly under the western slopes of Clach Bheinn. These slopes are lined with a series of rocky crags, which at first glance look quite a challenge, but on closer inspection can be easily by-passed by a few short grassy scrambles. The summit area has two cairns, the southern most being the true summit, with the second one situated some 100 metres north east across a shallow depression. With the obligatory photo taken on the true summit, we crossed to the northern cairn for our lunch and just to take in some wonderful views and soak up the sun.

Capull Cloiche lies west of Clach Bheinn, and so we descended back to the bealach below the western slopes of Clach Bheinn and continued west across a broad flat, and often wet, grassy plain towards the minor top of Capull Cloiche (577m) from where we turned north for the long, but relatively easy ascent to our final objective, Beinn Mhor. The summit of Beinn Mhor is graced with a complete and intact Trig Point, which sits atop the rocky summit, and on a clear day as we had, is clearly visible from a considerable distance as you make your approach towards the summit. Holding the distinction of the highest peak in Cowal, we had unrestricted views from the summit of Beinn Mhor which extended as far south as Arran and Goatfell, west to Jura, east beyond Ben Lomond, and north to ranges beyond Loch Fyne

We departed the summit and descended the grassy southwest ridge before turning directly south and descending towards the forest boundary where we entered the forest via a narrow grassy gully and small stream,which we followed for some 200 metres and then, after some searching, found the rather overgrown and not very obvious ending to the forest track which would lead us through the forest towards Glenmassan.

As we progressed through the forest, the track became much more defined, and from that point onwards, it was quite a pleasant walk down through the forest and onto the Glen Massan track, along which we walked the final few kilometres down the glen to our starting point at Stonefield.

This was a grand day on the hills, with great weather and wonderful views - thanks for the company Alan.

Cautionary Note: The forest track which begins in Glenmassan (NS 09718 87959) and climbs up through the forest is shown own OS mapping as ending at NS 10322 89468; from which point an obvious and marked clearing leads uphill for a short distance to open hillside. Anyone contemplating this anti-clockwise route should be aware that this exit/entry point in not so obvious when approached from the southwest ridge of Beinn Mhor; the entry point which leads to the main forest track, is located at grid ref NS 10230 89587, a single marker pole is also positioned on the open hillside approximately 30 metres above the entry point. The route accompanying this report is our actual walked route, warts and all, including the incorrect entry to the forest. Click here to view the updated route from a repeat of this walk on 25th May 2014, when the correct entry point to the forest track was used.