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This was my
fourth walk with my cousin Allan, who I've walked with a little over
the past two years. We did this walk in the afternoon and evening to
catch the best of the weather, given that the morning was cloudy and
Monday would see rain and gales across the country. Steve (who was driving)
and I picked Allan up from outside Central Station, Glasgow, and drove
out Great Western Road, bound north. Out choice of hill for the day
wasn't defined yet, but there were a few contenders. The Arrochar Alps
had been a possibility, as had the Tyndrum Munros, but I settled on
Beinn Chabhair because it would be my last Munro in the
Crianlarich Hills.
To Lochan Beinn Chabhair
After a stop at the Arrochar petrol station to stock up on food and
drink, Steve dropped Allan and I off at Beinglas Farm, Inverarnan. I
knew the path to Beinn Chabhair climbed steeply past the waterfall, but
I didn't know where it started. We walked past the bar and restaurant
and managed to pick up the path behind the buildings. Then it was a steep climb
on a path often with the roar of the waterfalls rumbling around the next
corner. The sun was out and
it was warm. The hills around Inverarnan
were an entire
area I'd only seen from the car and it was nice to finally be able to see
them from high up.
The path emerged out by the waterfalls, which were awfully impressive -
very loud and powerful. It seemed strange at the time to think that such
volumes of water could flow off the one hill, but when I saw the amount of
bog on the higher slopes, my opinion changed. Heading up, the path
crossed a stile and ran up by the waterfall, eventually emerging onto flatter ground. According to others I'd spoken to,
the best
part of our walk was done because they'd reckoned that the waterfalls
were the most enjoyable part. Beinn Chabhair came into our view, still distant, but
between us and it lay several kilometres of bog. I knew now why this
hill received so much criticism. I don't mind bogs but they're clearly
unpopular and they don't float my boat either after too many
kilometres of them.
The views down Loch Lomond were beautiful, as always.
It amazed me that there was so much ground so high up - it almost felt
to me as if we were on a kind of plateau. Navigating through the bogs, we
approached Lochan Beinn Chabhair and followed the river through the
first broad corrie to the second, higher one, where the lochan sat. As
we walked, some thicker cloud was heading our way, but it would pass
given time.
NW Ridge and Summit
Now at Lochan Beinn Chabhair, the question was where to go next to reach the
summit? It seemed that we'd be able to scramble through the crags to the
top, but the path, although increasingly faint, led us up a gully to a
shark fin of rock far west of the summit. Choosing this route of ascent
would leave us with a long ridge walk to the summit, but it seemed as
good a route as any. It was a short ascent to the ridge of about 150
vertical metres, where views opened out to the north across the
Highlands. I diverted off to a top to see down to Lochan a' Chaisteil,
which although I didn't know it at the time, was Meall nan Tarmachan's
west top. I have a thing about climbing subsidiary summits, and this
summit was a Corbett Top. Had I known, I might have gone for Meall nan
Tarmachan too...
Allan and I headed up the ridge, and I think he was as glad to see the
final
summit ridge was I was. We'd been going a long time so we both wanted to
be finished with this hill. A path wove around all the hummocks of the ridge,
and we steadily climbed with the sun lowering to the east. We summited
at 6.15pm, three hours after we'd started. A small
cairn sat upon the highest point. It was a wonderful viewpoint, looking
south
down Loch Lomond with widespread views to the north and to the west,
though with limited views east due to the Crianlarich Hills extending
out in that direction.
We stayed on top for a long time, only phoning home for a lift at around
6.45pm. We gave Steve about two hours to be at Inverarnan, although we only left
the top about 15
minutes later, giving ourselves a little less time to descend. When we
did leave, we
descended directly to Lochan Beinn Chabhair, which would allow us not
only to descend quickly but might offer some scrambling opportunities
past the rock outcrops.
Descent
We took half an hour to get to the loch and from there, it would
be a long and boggy walk back to Inverarnan. In the end took 40 minutes
to get to the last steep descent to Glen Falloch. The sun was going down
too, and I would watch the shifting light on the hills as we moved. It
would have been a nice night for a camp, but I'd had plenty of that this
summer, and I was keen to get down anyway now that we'd had our walk.
As we were on the last descent to Inverarnan, we watched a silver car
pull into Beinglas Farm followed by a phone call from Steve saying he'd
arrived. We told him we weren't far and we'd only be a matter of
minutes. We descended into Beinglas Farm where we met Steve outside the
bar. I got a drink too and we stayed for ten
minutes, finally leaving with some chips to take away.
We headed home from Inverarnan as the sun set across the mountains and
the skies cleared for the evening. We drove down Loch Lomond-side in the
twilight, and while it was a nice night, I'd done enough walking for the
day and would be happy to get home. We'd had a good day on the hills -
the weather was good and it was the seventh and final Munro of the
Crianlarich Hills I still had to climb. Future plans may be to go back
and climb the tops of the north west ridge and perhaps include Parlan
Hill in a round trip. There's always something else to do in the
mountains, and on Beinn Chabhair there's a lot more for me to go back for.
Panorama
360˚ from Beinn Chabhair
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