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| The state of our legs and feet after our three day trip to Culra and back had put us off attempting another long day so Alasdair had the bright idea of doing the Aonach Eagach today instead of the following day as originally planned. In fact Howard was planning to leave early the next morning so wouldn’t have been around anyway. In addition the forecast was good and the sun was already shining as we took both cars down to Glen Coe, a drive of about an hour from Tulloch. We left one car outside Glencoe Village below the Pap of Glencoe and drove up to the starting point in the other. |
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| The path up Am Bodach was steep but excellent and the climb was relatively painless despite being an ascent of nearly 800m. We stopped on the way up to have lunch in the sun, admiring the view over to Bidean nam Bian. |
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| Loch Achtriochtan with Beinn a’ Bheithir beyond |
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| By the time we reached the summit of Am Bodach it was beginning to cloud over a bit. From there we could at last see the ridge, and a little of what we were in for! |
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| It was not long before we reached the fhe first tricky descent, but we got down without too much difficulty, daring to think that the rest was no trickier than this. |
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| After a few more scrambles we had reached the first Munro, Meall Dearg. Then came the Pinnacle Ridge, described in the SMC guidebook as “the hardest part of the traverse”. Why had I not noticed that phrase? |
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| So for about an hour we clambered our way along, always wondering what the next challenge would be, which often looked impossible from a distance and only just possible from close up. However there was always a way, and usually not too difficult when taken step by step, as long as you totally ignored the exposure. |
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| The trickiest part was the path which we followed down to the right of a pinnacle and back up to the crest. From there we could see another route coming down from over the top. Would that have been easier? If so we missed it. |
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| Another tricky drop |
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| The scrambling became especially tricky towards the end as a light rain had started to fall making the rock a bit slippery. Nevertheless, we all got safely along this whole section and were very pleased to stop for a rest at the col below Stob Coire Leith "where all difficulties end" according to the SMC book. We then enjoyed the somewhat more relaxing section of the ridge between there and Stob Coire Leith, and then onwards to Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, the second Munro. |
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| We then had to come down off the ridge on a bearing, having been misled by several wrong paths. Eventually we found ourselves on an excellent path coming down diagonally and heading for exactly where we wanted to get to, where we had left the car. By now the rain had become pretty persistent, but such minor setbacks could hardly dampen our spirits, we who had now "done the Aonach Eagach"! |
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| Looking west along Loch Leven |
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| At last we emerged into sunshine once more, and even stopped to sit at a picnic table near the bottom for a while. There was a short walk along the road to the car, then we drove back up to our starting point to collect the other car - such luxury! Then there was the drive back to Tulloch via Fort William where we stopped for phone calls and a bit of shopping. Back at the hostel it was our last evening together and Howard served a slap-up meal of pizza and pork chops to round off our stay. |
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| The ridge from the glen |
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