This rambles on a bit but I hope its of interest to anyone going here.
Was up here with my works hillwalking club Friday - Monday.
Arrived in Inverie on Friday afternoon(ferry from Mallaig), stayed at
the bunkhouse. Basic but comfortable accommodation.
Never used the cooking facilities but dined & drank at the Old Forge pub
which fortunately is very good, decent food and 2 ales on tap.
On a glorious Saturday morning, we split into several parties -
1. Ladhar Bheinn via Beinn na Caillich
2. Ladhar Bheinn via Sgurr Coire Choinnichean
3. Luinne Bheinn & Meall Buidhe
4. Meall Buidhe , Luinne Bheinn & Ladhar Bheinn
We were party 4, we'd seen the weather for the sunday and decided on a
big day to avoid getting wet the next day but with the option to wimp
out before Ladhar Bheinn.
Set off down the right of way from Inverie on a good track before
splitting off SE to Gleann Meadail and over a few bridges.
Easy going to here but now we had to slog NE over relentless grassy
terrain to Meall Buihde's SW ridge. This offers plenty of false summits
before you reach the 826m top looking up to Meall Buihde. From here its
a straightforward walk to the summit and has a rough track to guide you.
We arrived here 2 1/2 hours into the walk.
The summit offered spectacular views over NW scotland including the rest
of Knoydart, Skye and a distant Ben Nevis. After visiting all the bumps
on the summit we continued following the track that would eventually
lead us to the next peak Luinne Bheinn.
This track occasionally gets indistinct and it would be easy to get lost
in bad weather. Its a fairly knobbly ridge and not a knife edge to
follow but eventually after much up & down you reach the summit of
Luinne Bheinn. Just after we arrived (4 hours in) group 3 joined us for
lunch. We'd also bumped into another colleague who was not here with the
club!
Pressing on after lunch we descended steeply to the bealach Mam
Barrisdale at 450m. Had a chat with members of another club who we'd
seen in the pub the night before. It was still early and we decided to
carry on to Ladhar Bheinn (we could have followed a track back to
Inverie at this point).
Ladhar Bheinn is obviously not climbed very often from this route so we
took a bearing to an obvious col near its south ridge and made
surprisingly good progress to it. Even better news we joined up with a
path from Barrisdale that would wind its way to the summit. Some minor
scrambling took us to an 849m top from to an impressive view of Ladhar
Bheinn's corries.
Not far to the summit now... we not as the crow flies but this ridge
undulates down to around 700m. As we were approaching the summit we
caught sight of party 1 waiting for us. We reached the summit 7 3/4
hours into the day.
Gathering clouds and the threat of rain spurred us off the mountain down
its steep SW side where we followed the burn down the glen (note that
the bridge is out) and eventually to Inverie where the first spots of
rain started coming down.
A great day that allowed us to wander round the coastline on the Sunday
in the drizzle whilst the others did some more corbett bagging and a
large group went up Ladhar Bheinn.
Recommended to anyone both peak baggers and those who just fancy a
wander. 3 munros, 3 corbetts and plenty of good tracks that run along
the glens.
Shame the weather on the day traveling back was so good. Very annoying
driving rather than walking through the highlands.
Pictures at http://www.prog99.com (direct link -
http://www.prog99.com/Hillwalking%20in%20Scotland/Knoydart%20-%20May%202006/index.html)
--
Mike
Some pictures of the Scottish highlands here http://www.prog99.com