A solitary Munro and probably one of the least enjoyable Munros I have completed (Munros Completed : Beinn Chabhair (35)).
The undulating ridge of Beinn Chabhair.
2010/12/29 : Forecast was spot on again with no wind, but cloudy & drizzly to start but this soon stopped. The first section of the walk above the farm was steep & again very icy and I slipped a couple of times on the verglas. The falls didn’t help my mood as I was becoming disenchanted with the visibility. However, once on the plateau, it seemed to clear slightly & I could see the mountain tops around 700m with the occasional glimpse of blue sky as the wisps of cloud moved over the mountains.
The track is well-defined & follows the burn for a long way up to the lochen. There was snow on the plateau but less than ankle deep. There appeared to be cloud layers as just above the lochen the cloud thickened again & I ascended into the gloom to make the ridge that leads to the peak. To my surprise however, this was another cloud layer and once on top of the ridge the visibility improved dramatically.
The ridge is not really a true ridge, but is very craggy & annoyingly undulates so as soon as you gain height you lose some the other side. The craggy rocks mean also that you have to weave your way back and fore across the ridge to find the best line. Unfortunately, there was a further cloud layer starting 100m below the summit, so for the remaining part of the hike, visibility was reduced to 30m. I had a turnaround time of 13:30 and I arrived at the summit bang on half past one!
The summit doesn’t appear to have a cairn of any sort and I double checked by looking around and could see no point any higher within the 30m viz range (there is a small cairn about 200m further back from the GPS summit point where I had a quick drink on descending but this is not the highest point). I decided on the longer return route as the ford is obviously well defined and once to the river even in darkness the West Highland way would also be a well-trodden path.
I arrived at the bottom of the ford on the WHW at 15:45 just at the twilight of sunset and then it was an easy walk along the way (which itself is almost like a ford track) back to the car at the Drovers Inn arriving at 16:15 (don’t follow the WHW all the way as it goes to the farm buildings itself – last 200m cut across the field to the bridge). Ten minutes after arriving at the car it was pitch black – made it back just in time again!
