The Pap of Glencoe

Today was never destined to be an early start.

I didn’t start the drive from home to Ballachulish until after 5’o’clock in the previous afternoon and a challenging drive in the dark and rain up the shore of Loch Lomond and over Rannoch Moor left me too alert to think about going straight to bed.  So a leisurely start the following morning was inevitable.

Even though it isn’t on my ticklist the Pap of Glencoe promised a shortish day of walking.  I parked in the large car park at the mountain’s base and started walking along the track parallel to the road.  The footpath to the Pap is well signed low down and as height is gained it is easy to follow although the ground underfoot is very eroded in places, particularly when the ground steepens alongside the Allt a’ Mhuilinn where the path is a deep trench in places.

Garbh Bheinn of Ardgour

The way up then turns left towards the bealach.  I exchanged greetings with a couple of couples who were heading back downhill and then headed straight towards the summit, reaching the flatter ground of the bealach before picking my way through the rockier terrain of the final 500 feet of ascent.  The broken ground of the north-eastern traverse finally gave way to slabbier ground reaching its way to the top.

The summit is a magnificent grandstand for views from the south, past the open seascape towards Ardgour, and around to the east.  The remaining quarter is blocked by the higher ground of Sgorr nam Fionnaidh.  The snow topped summits of the Mamores were a highlight to the north and my first Munro, Sgorr Dhearg, stood sentinel over Loch Leven and its meeting with Loch Linnhe at the Ballachulish bridge.  Garbh Bheinn of Ardgour was unfortunately topped by cloud but its Kinlochleven namesake stood menacingly proud.

the Mamores

Sgorr Dhearg

Garbh Bheinn over Kinlochleven

Loch Linnhe

I took the obligatory photos to record the view before turning tail, retracing my steps and having put on and take off my waterproofs twice to deal with the heavy showers that pulsed in from the Atlantic.

As I descended I realised that the footpath was pretty poor and as the ground was now wet, I had to take some care deciding where to place my feet.  The route was obviously quite well used and the erosion definitely needs to be addressed.

I arrived at the car just as the sun had set and then drove to Ballachulish to choose a suitable beer.

Garbh Bheinn of Ardgour

“Gharbh Bheinn is a magnificent mountain.” ⁽¹⁾

“Gharbh Bheinn of Ardgour is one of the finest mountains in the western Highlands.” ⁽²⁾

The MWIS predicted a “rare benign day” as Storm Gertrude had passed and Storm Henry was heading towards us, due to arrive that night.  Garbh Bheinn was my major objective for the weekend and the calmer conditions forecast gave me the chance to reach it.  We made a relatively early start to catch the first ferry at Corran and after a short drive to Inversanda we were walking by just after 9’o’clock.

From where we were staying at Onich, there is a good view of the mountain when the weather is cooperative, but there was little chance of seeing it this weekend.  It is as a Corbett that Garbh Bheinn is best known but it was on my ticklist because of its inclusion in the TRAIL 100 list and it was my first attempt at a summit listed on my #trail7summits challenge.

The south-east ridge has a reputation of being “interesting” and with a liberal coating of snow, that interest became obvious.  Careful route finding was needed to avoid the icy rock steps and we had to resort to ascending smaller snowed-up gullies, plunging knee-deep to make progress.  As we moved up, I was thinking that returning this way would be a challenge late in the day as it would mean reversing some awkward moves.

the way up - Sron a' Gharbh Choire Mhoir 

Although there was no particular need to do so, we dug a snow pit and discovered a layer of graupel about five inches below the top layer of unconsolidated snow.  There wasn’t much risk of avalanche as there were no continuously big areas of snow cover and we were plunging to a level below the graupel layer.  That was lucky as a consolidated top layer would have given us pause for thought.

We continued up to the lower summit of Sron a’ Gharbh Choire Mhoir where we had something to eat and put on our crampons.  Although visibility had not been extensive – good enough to select a sensible route but poor enough to mask views of hills further afield – a quick break in the cloud gave us a tantalising view of the Garbh Bheinn cliffs looming above us.

ethereal Garbh Bheinn

A descent to the col was much easier now that we were wearing spikes, before picking our way up the final slopes to the top.  We took the obligatory summit photos and made our way back down to the col where we discussed the way down and agreed that finding a way down Garbh Choire Mor was a better option as it would lead to a much easier walk out down Coire an Iubhair.

Garbh Bheinn summit cliffs with hanging boulder

Sticking to the right of the corrie, an opportunity to bumslide down the first couple of hundred metres was gleefully taken and it saved us quite a bit of time.  An inch-deep layer of windslab was sliding away at the top of the slope but this dissipated as we lost height and the terrain became slightly rockier.  The rocks brought the fun to a halt and marked the start of footstep roulette, not knowing whether we would be stepping on rocks below the surface or plunging thigh-deep.  The croak of a ptarmigan became louder as we were obviously approaching it but its camouflage was hugely effective and despite looking around the corrie below us, we never saw it.

It was becoming obviously warmer as we reached the lower slopes with the debris of many small slough avalanches below the more significant crags.  We reached the track but after a mile on the very boggy, and sometimes indistinct, path we realised that rushing for an earlier ferry was pointless and we eased off the pace.

It’s not often that having climbed a mountain I would want to do it again, but I suspect that a summer ascent in good  weather would give a superb day out.  Not that today wasn’t, of course !

⁽¹⁾        quoted from     “Walking the Corbetts Volume 2: North of the Great Glen”

            author              Brian Johnson

            publisher         Cicerone Press

⁽²⁾        quoted from     “The Corbetts & Other Scottish Hills”

            editors             Rob Milne & Hamish Brown

            publisher         Scottish Mountaineering Club