With warm summer's weather forecast for the weekend, Carmen and I took the opportunity of a quick trip to Knoydart to finish off one of our last remaining Munros, Ladhar Bheinn (which as you'd expect is pronounced "Lar-venn"). After a short 7.5 hour drive on Friday evening we camped at Kinloch-hourn.
An early rise on Saturday morning to beat possible late-afternoon rain saw us walking by 7.30. Cloudy and cool but dry, it took us a little under 3 hours (with a brief pause to photograph some tribbles) to cover the 7 miles or so to the bothy at Barrisdale. We pitched our tent outside the bothy. No time to delay so we set off for Ladhar Bheinn.
Far from burning off as expected, the early cloud seemed to be thickening, and it wasn't long before the rain started. The cloud base was high though, well above the summits, so we had good views despite the rain. A short but steep and vegetated scramble up Stob a' Chearcaill was made more exciting by the damp. Then a traverse over a couple of small tops and another steep climb led to the short summit ridge.
The rain stopped at last, and as we walked out and back to first the high point and then the trig point 300m beyond, the sun even made a weak appearance. The trig point appeared candle-like with the recent addition of a large rock. I expect someone got a large Arts Council grant for it.
We descended over the Top of Stob a' Choire Odhair and into the fine corrie of Coire Dhorrcail before picking up an old stalkers' path back to the bothy. Another 7 hours or so making a 10 hour day, 16 miles and 2200m ascent, rather more than expected from a glance at the map!
The promised rain held off long enough for us to eat in the dry, but it then set in for much of the night, so thoughts of an evening stroll by the sea were quickly abandoned.
Sunday's weather forecast was for a little low cloud first thing, swiftly lifting to give a warm or even hot, sunny day. So we were disappointed (though not surprised) when we emerged from the tent to find the cloud even lower that Saturday, the temperatures the same, but with the addition of a strong wind.
Our plan had been to walk out up Glen Barrisdale then via a grade 3 scramble up An Caisteal, a traverse of Graham Meall nan Eun and Corbett Sgurr nan Eugallt before descending to the glen just a mile or so from the car. But the wind was strong enough to make walking a fight at times, so with a lot of the rock still damp after the night's rain we quickly abandoned the idea of a scramble, missed out the Graham, and instead slogged up the steep hillside to the low col SW of the Corbett.
Still cloudy and windy with no sign of the sun, we were at least dry, and again the cloud base had lifted high enough to clear the tops – though a thick haze prevented much in the way of views.
A false summit (Sgurr Sgiath Airigh) with a fine cairn was followed by the real summit with a tiny cairn, and then a few hundred metres away by a 3rd top where the trig point was found (did they always put the trig somewhere other than the high point round here?). Well worth having the Harvey map for this hill, as the OS maps still show the trig point as being the highest. A descent of the NE ridge led to a very old stalkers' path, becoming boggy and hard to follow in places after years of neglect but a delightful route nevertheless. Even better, the sun finally deigned to make an appearance, and by the time we reached the car at about 2pm the temperatures had soared to a massive 15C.
So where was the heatwave we were promised? We met it at Fort William, just 20 miles to the south, where the temperature was 25C!
Despite the disappointing weather we had a great weekend, it's hard to go wrong in Knoydart! Just a shame about the long drive.
6 Munroes to go and still on course for completion later this month…
Some more photos here