Arrochar Alps, 2nd August 2008

Was back in Scotland this weekend picking up my mother, so decided on a quick raid to the Arrochar Alps North of Loch Lomond.

Weather was exactly as forecast - bloody awful.

The sun did manage to shine at times but the SW wind quickly brought in more cloud and often visibility was down to 10m.

However, it was still a great day. First Munro was Beinn Narnain (926m). The views on the way up from Succouth weren't very impressive, with lots of cloud hanging round the summit. I decided on going on past the Narnain boulders (in themselves worth seeing) and coming up the NW side. At the foot of the path you caught the occasional glimpse of Beinn Ime's slopes, but no sign of the summit there either.

Over to the left the Cobbler looked dark and foreboding and had quite a lot of people making their way to the start point.

Getting to the top of Beinn Narnain was attained by following a path of sorts, that was actually more like a stream. As usual, in a pure Verdes moment, the sun broke through for the traditional summit snaps, but also in Verdes fashion, my camera lost battery power at the top too.

Damn.

On the descent, the clouds closed in again and it lashed with rain all the way the bottom, making progress very slippy and treacherous.

On reaching the bottom I swithered about just calling it quits there and then. The rain was getting heavier, visibility was abysmal and conditions underfoot were really foul.

And that's where a Verdes day became a Viking day in Ginger's parlance.

I picked the best stream coming off the top of Beinn Ime (1011m) and started the upward slog. The wind was really strong from the south and the rain was pelting down, but with hood up and a bit of determination the summit came into sight after a while.

As usual, the bloody sun broke through for the summit snaps, hastily taken by my phone camera (apologies for the quality). I could see Ben Vane across the saddle which was going to be hill number three for the day. As I was putting my camera away, Ben Vane disappeared and again the cloud closed in.

Discretion over took valour and I decided against the steep descent to pick up the path to Ben Vane. I'll have a go at this one next week when I take my mother home.

After 10 minutes of negotiating my way through the clag and the slippy grass, the inevitable happened and I creamed in to the rocks in John Dicko fashion.

But no real harm done.

Davie 2 - Alps 1.

But it's only half time.

Davie