Buachaille Etive Mor

Summary

Details

A Bank Holiday weekend, so I did what every seemed to be every man and his dog did and go walking in the hills! Buachaille Etive Mor was not a quiet place. I had a slightly different route to the standard one, picked up from 'Trail' magazine. It has this down as technical 4/5, but I was not so sure exactly what that meant. Half way up the scree slopes around Creag a' Bhancair I knew EXACTLY what it meant. Although when I checked the route later, the Trail route was scrambling up the rock (the blue line on the map) whilst I went round them and up the scree (the dotted red line)! But the challenge was good and when I got to the top of that part, I had a real sense of achievement... and relief.

Walked round to Stob Dearg I crossed snow patches, which were quite a surprise in May. Back down towards Feadan Bàn for a quick spot of egg and noodles on the lee slope. This was the first use of the Tibetan Titan Mug & Cone Stove, which was fantastic. What was not so good was putting the egg into the water first, and then dumping the noodles on top. The stove blasted heat directly onto the egg, which welded itself to the bottom of the mug to give the noodles that oh-so-tasty carbon flavour. (It took nearly a week of bi-carbonate of soda to remove the burnt on egg).

Then on to Stob na Doire, followed by Stob Coire Altruim. I did not make it all the way to Stob na Bròige as I was worried about the lack of time. The trip up the scree slopes of Creag a' Bhancair had taken longer than expected. I was expected home at a certain time and any later would have resulted in an emergency services call! Better safe than sorry.

Down the Coire Altrium (which I found hard going on my knees) and along the River Coupall to get back to the car park. The pathway seemed to just vanish in the bog near the end and there were a few knee deep moments - well, the ground LOOKED like it was solid.