Beinn Nan Aighenan, 3rd January 2016
The New Year brought a great opportunity for three old hillwalking buddies to meet up again and get back into the outdoors. We had time, we were all well rested over the holidays and reasonably fit again, so all that was missing was the great weather! But we never got that of course.....this last month has all been about rain, rain and more rain.
We headed up to Glen Etive to stay at our favourite haunt for the night - some beers were consumed, a dram or two was scooped but it remained very civil despite Steg's sheepish revelation on the events of the previous couple of days.
The night was wet and wild outside but we were cosy and the fire stayed burning for most of the night. At 7:30am, the alarm went off and there was a bit of concern over whether we should be going out in that weather or not, but we decided it might go off through the day, and so we had breakfast and a wash and were at the wee car park area at Coilietir for 9:00am, and walking down to the bridge over the River Etive at 9:20am. Our hill for the day was Beinn Nan Aighenan.
Here's Steg making sure everything is sealed, you get an idea of the water underfoot:
As we crossed over the bridge that takes you to Kinlochetive, we remarked that if you fell in there, you probably weren't getting out:
From this point we headed up the familiar path to the waterfall that we often visit in Summer where there is a lovely deep pool in which to swim.
As you can see, everything is a raging torrent and the volume of water was incredible. It made for some very dramatic scenes however.
We headed up to Glen Etive to stay at our favourite haunt for the night - some beers were consumed, a dram or two was scooped but it remained very civil despite Steg's sheepish revelation on the events of the previous couple of days.
The night was wet and wild outside but we were cosy and the fire stayed burning for most of the night. At 7:30am, the alarm went off and there was a bit of concern over whether we should be going out in that weather or not, but we decided it might go off through the day, and so we had breakfast and a wash and were at the wee car park area at Coilietir for 9:00am, and walking down to the bridge over the River Etive at 9:20am. Our hill for the day was Beinn Nan Aighenan.
Here's Steg making sure everything is sealed, you get an idea of the water underfoot:
As we crossed over the bridge that takes you to Kinlochetive, we remarked that if you fell in there, you probably weren't getting out:
As you can see, everything is a raging torrent and the volume of water was incredible. It made for some very dramatic scenes however.
We followed the Starav path for a bit but then we followed the burn upstream - it's a steady path. Then we found one of the best views in Scotland. I remember it from the last time - the burn takes a massive drop in height while the surrounding area drops gently. I think there's scope for a really great picture of this in late summer with the sunrise light on the shoulder of Starav and the hills beyond (you can't see the hills beyond here...)
We pressed on, and although it was January, there was still very little snow. It was quite warm as well despite the heavy rain and high winds.
As we approached the big corrie, an incredible sight greeted us - the massive hills hidden by cloud with gullies filled with snow surround a massive hanging valley. It's a real treat for the eyes and geographers would love this stuff. In these conditions, it is awe inspiring. Despite having packed the SLR away in my rucksack I had to stop and get it out again. This is a 5-shot vertical panorama, (shot handheld at 1/80s for those interested) showing the full grandeur of the scene.
We climbed up onto the rim of the corrie, where we then dropped down a couple of hundred metres before our ascent of the last part of Beinn Nan Aighenan.
We made the top of the corrie about 12pm.
The final summitting of the hill required some careful navigation in the mist, and snow. As we neared the top, the snow patches became thicker so it was away with the poles and out with my nice new ice axe. There wasn't enough snow or ice for crampons unfortunately.
We hit the summit about 1:40pm but didn't hang about because the wind was getting quite intense. We dropped down a bit and got behind some rocks for a bite to eat:
Then it was selfie time, so we could send the results off to Shig:
We headed back, dropping height quickly, and managing to keep to the path. It was a long and arduous hike back to the cars, but we made it at 4:35pm and were all tired and smelly by the end of it.
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