The view east from Beinn a’ Chochuill
to Beinn Eunaich

The trip was supposed to be a seven Munro trek for four days in the wilderness based around Glen Kinglass near Loch Awe. I was really looking forward to it after my exams for high pressure was forecast which potentially meant good weather. It all went to pieces when the flint on my lighter broke off and I had no back up matches.

Ben Starav from the south
across Glen Kinglass

I had a good sleep on the coach and was eager to see how the highlands were shaping up snow wise. The Cairngorm skiing area reported the week before to have the most amount of snow for ten years. This sounded promising, the snow seemed thin on the mountains south of Crianlarich but to the north things seemed to be looking up

I waited in Tyndrum for twenty minutes for a hitch to arrive to take me to the head of Loch Awe. A pulse of rain lingered as I was dropped off but this soon drifted away and I was left with Blue sky over Loch Awe and dark clouds which seemed to be building behind the Cruachan range. My ascent used a landrover track to bring me up to 350m and from then on it was on snow up to the bealach between the two summits. The snow was thin at first but built up higher up into deep snowfields. The snow though moist was quite easy to walk on and so I arrived at the bealach by noon.

From there I had lunch and headed off to the western summit. I brought my camera and axe and left the rest of the gear to return to. The views out north and west seemed bleak and wild. I anticipated climbing the summits around Ben Starav the next few days. On the way up the first summit I was caught in a nasty shower where the winds suddenly picked up and made progress very tiresome. It cleared quickly to return the views but the cloud lingered over the Cruachan range all the time not yielding any views.

I was caught again in a shorter but very vicious shower on the way back to my sack, I could feel the hail pounding on my jacket which was painful but was very glad I wasn’t facing the wind. The weather behaved itself for the remainder of todays walk but I still faced hard slippery wind scoured slopes on the next and final summit. My axe proved it’s worth yet again in stopping me slide back down the mountain. I climbed the summit and now had a walk to do north in to Coire Glas.

Creach Beinn, a Corbett across
the other side of Loch Etive

The slopes here were covered in deep wet snow and avalanche prone slopes were evident to the left and right. Large balls of snow often the size of small cars were seen occasionally scattered across the steepest parts of the slope. I carefully picked my way down to avoid the dodgy slopes . I displaced some snow myself, the balls of snow rolled down about ten feet accumulating snow into a coil which reached one foot in diameter. The speed of these ‘wheels’ was sluggish and the fact that they slowed down quickly suggested that the slope was beneath the critical angle needed for avalanches to occur. The deep snow did cushion my foot steps down to the campsite and so I was able to make quite fast progress.

I set up the tent in good spirits looking forward to tomorrow, I sorted every thing out and it was now tea time. The stove wasn’t behaving itself, I thought it may be the cannister and so I changed the cannister. It still wasn’t behaving itself, the flame lit but then went out. After repeated attempts to light the stove the flint broke off. My high spirits were now sinking but I didn’t give up. I then remembered the repair kit for the stove and all it needed was for the nozzle to be cleared. The gas flow was then smooth instead of sounding ‘blotchy’ as before. I sorted the stove but still had the lighter to try and fix. After dismantling the lighter with my new pen knife I tried to re attach the flint back on to the spring but the spring was also broken. I resigned myself to having no hot food or drink.

Camped in Coire Glas,
Beinn a' Chocuill seen behind

My enthusiasm wasn’t demolished all together though, I considered the possibility of going without hot food or drink but a cold drink of water in the morning soon discouraged any thought about that. I subsequently decided to go back to sleep and think up a new stategy.

The next day was spent doing nothing except wandering around looking at the misty surroundings and drawing big smily faces in the snow.

I decided to move and try to catch the afternoon coach back to Manchester. I was up at 5.30am and off at 6.20am. The now patchy snow gave good visibility in the dark despite the low cloud and so it felt fascinating to walk in such surroundings. I reached the bealach again just as it was getting light and a swift decent down to the road was in order. I reached the road at 9.10am and was given a prompt hitch back to Tyndrum where I had a nice huge Bacon Bap at the Little chef, and that was VERY nice!

In hindsight I could have done the remaining summit by going back to Tyndrum on Friday to get some matches and then hitching round to Glen Etive though at the time the thought never occurred to me. The summits can be conveniently added on to another trip later on though. A bit of a failure overall this time round.