Stob Dearg – Buachaille Etive Mor, 20th August 2010

We were supposed to be climbing Ben Nevis and Carn Mor Dearg, but the weather was predicting 100mph gusts by mid afternoon so we figured that the highest ridge in Scotland would have to fight another day. Over breakfast at the Green Welly, Speccy, Gordo and Scotty decided that a traverse of the Buachaille would be in order. We had the pleasure of 2 cars since I was heading elsewhere later in the day so we parked Scotty’s at the 3 mile bridge in Glen Etive and all jumped in mine to head for Altnafeadh, where we started our ascent of Coire Na Tulaich at 10.10.

The Coire has a better path than I remembered from previous ascents, but visibility was minimal so it was sometimes hard to see where we were headed. Banter was good, especially with Gordo having returned for a brief spell after being in Australia for 3 years.

We made the summit in terrible rain at 12.30 and stopped for some lunch.

Pretty wet, as you can see.

We headed from there, back to the bealach and headed down to the three mile bridge.

The winds had really picked up by this point and it was difficult to remain steady on your feet. Scotty had a fall in the scree and cut his hands badly, however we washed them down at the river and made an effort to remove some bits of stone using the sterilised tweezers from my swiss army knife.

We arrived back at the car at the three mile bridge, soaked but happy that we’d climbed the bookil!