Monday, April 17, 2006

Arrochar Alps detour 16th April

The Plan was for a run round 3 of the 4 munros, Narnain, Ime & Vane, nearly 13 miles and 6900' of climb. Snow still evident on the tops but hopefully ok.

Set off straight up Narnain from Succoth a few snow patches but nothing too bad until the last couple of gullies which were snow filled. Wind was getting up as well so stopped for a drink before going up to minimise the time spent exposed on the top. Using the compacted footprints already there quickly moved through the gullies and reached the top, pretty horrible up there so ran straight past the trig point and had an easier than usual run down through a snow filled boulder field into the Bealach a Mhaim.

The conditions on Ime are usually worse than Narnain, maybe as its 300' higher, so if it doesn't look good the plan was to go about half way up and then contour round into Glas Bheallach. More snow, wind and cloud meant it did not look too inviting plus the path along to the second peak is v exposed the drop off the back v steep and not too much fun in the snow and ice. Decided to contour round through Glas B into Lag Uaine and up Ben vane. Contoured round but tended to take the easy downhill option to get around the gullies and crags in the way, dropped too low so the contour took longer than planned and after about 30 mins realised a stiff climb was required to reach Glas B. Running round a mountain is harder than over the top!

Decided that the sensible option was to continue down to Butterbridge and run to the top of the Rest, down the old road and then pick up the forest rack through Glen Croe back to Succoth. Still a reasonable mornings run about 14 miles with 5000' of climb. Only a couple of pictures as it was too cold for the camera and me.

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