Jog walked up the track rucksack heavy packed with food, water, spare clothes, maps, bivvy bag and headtorch. Across boggy moorland to the first climb up Stob Ban's NW flank, a herd of deer high above.
Clouds sitting on the tops of the Grey Corries 500' above. A sleet and hail squall blew through as I started the steep scree run off Stob Ban to the beallach, jacket and leggings on, break for food and drink, then the sun came out for the climb up Stob Choire Claurigh, ( pron stob corrie clorry) and the start of the Grey Corries ridge that extends to four munros and four other tops before the Aonachs.
Showers would blow through for the rest of the day. The grey colour comes from the quartzite rocks and stones that shroud these tops and doesn't make for steady running, more of a jog, walk, shuffle, and the odd scramble while taking in the views. Each top on the ridge appears as a puzzle that unravels the closer you get. The ridge narrows in places but not too narrow that you have to hold on.
Nav error leaving Stob Coire Easain, takes me off the ridge down steep shattered boulders on its NW flank, I dislodge one the size of a rucksack and watch it crash down a couple of hundred feet below. A rainy squall blows through, lose about half an hour here, going too slow to keep warm as I pick my way carefully down, change of gloves at the bottom and manage to generate a bit of heat on the climb back up to the ridge. Decide to keep going for now and run over the last couple of tops towards the Aonachs and climb out the gullies on the way to Stob Coire Bhealaich, met a Ramsey Rounder three hours into his hoped for sub 24 hour run looking remarkably fresh having covered the Ben, CMD and the Aonachs.
I looked at the cloud topped Aonachs above and decide to drop back down to Steall and run down Glen Nevis instead, finished just under 10 hours for same distance as planned, 22 miles, but only about 7500' of ascent. More pictures here.
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