New Route to Beinn Eunaich & Beinn a'Chochuill
Having completed 195 Munros and aiming for 200, my next target hill is Braeriach, a fine looking hill. This is a fairly big walk--20km and 1300m of ascent from Rothiemurchus, although I had thought of doing it from Glen Feshie, but that is 26.6km and 1600m of ascent--too far! Not having been on the hills until fairly recently, I decided that I needed to get hill-fit. So I looked for a walk near to Oban that would nearly equate to Braeriach. The hills to the east of Oban are familiar to me, so I plumped for Beinn Eunaich and Beinn a'Chochuill, but with a new approach (at least to me).
This invoved parking the car at the entrance to Glen Strae, walking along the estate track to the bridge at the waterfall, leaving the track to go north along the Allt Dhoirrean to the Lairig Dhoirreann, going west on to the ridge at Meall Copagach, over the 880m height and on to Beinn Eunaich. From there it was the usual route west to the col, on to the ridge to Beinn a'Chochuill, down the SE ridge to the Hydro Board road to the B8077, and a final kilometre walk back to the car.
On the day, the forecast was good, so off I set. About ten minutes into the walk, I met a couple of estate workers on the track. They had a couple of dogs with them, but I have two dogs myself so I was not worried. The collie ran up to me and I put my hand out to it to sniff, which it did. I thought "that's fine--he's smelled my dogs". But it then snapped at my hand. The guy called it off and told me that it was a"bad dog"! Fortunately, the only damage was two small punctures and a bruise. But not a good start!
Anyway, I carried on. Going up the Allt Dhoirrean, it was very hot with the sun at my back, but the clouds were drifting across the tops ahead. Easy scrambling took me on to Meall Cogagach, and the clouds cleared, but the sun disappeared too. The views were good, over Glen Kinglass towards Ben Starav, and in the opposite direction to Ben Lui.
The climb up to the Munro summit was steep, and I could see two people on the top ahead of me.When I got there, they had disappeared, so I just headed off down to the col. Looking across to the east ridge of Beinn a'Chochuill I could see a couple of walkers, then a few more, then even more. We crossed paths and it turned out that they were 24 members of the Glasgow Hillwalking Club. There were a few more walkers on the way to the second summit, and then it was down the ridge to the Hydro Board road and a welcome break beside the burn. The descent on the Hydro road was hard on my feet, but the walk along the road back to the car seemed to take forever!
However, it was a successful walk done in reasonable time and good weather, and at 18km and 1390m of ascent a good preparation for Braeriach (I hope!)
John Burton
