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Beinn Narnain Beinn Ime Map I drove up with Andrew on the Saturday (22nd), which was a beautiful clear day, and we got to Arrochar in good time. Booked a room at the Green Bank Guest House in the middle of the village - where Trisha and I had had a meal once - and then optimistically went on to see if we could do Beinn Bhuidhe. The approach to this mountain is along a private road which isn't open to cars but we did drive about a mile along it to a gravel pit and parked there behind a pile of gravel. We should have just kept going as there was little sign of anyone around to complain. Instead we set off at 2.30 without really appreciating the distance we had to go (about three and a half miles) and it was 3.30 by the time we got to the base of the mountain.
There's a stone cottage/bothy at the foot of the mountain and peering through the window you can see a dusty looking jar of marmite on the table. Life-saving stuff no doubt. Someone just coming down off the hill told us it would take four and a half hours to get up to the top and back, which meant returning in the dark with a long walk back to the car still to do. So we decided to turn round and walk all the way back again. Still, it was a nice day. That evening we had a meal at the Green Bank (vegetable curry - very nice) and then went out to explore the fleshpots of Arrochar. The hotel at the southern end of the village (the Arrochar Hotel) was closed for the season and Callum's Bar, right next to the Green Bank, was also closed having been burnt out by a chip pan fire. Consequently we repaired to the large hotel at the north end of the street, the Loch Long Hotel, and joined the coachloads of silvery trippers who were raving to a musical duo/trio grinding out the sounds of the fifties. Sunday was a washout - dispiriting drizzle, cloud and sleet. Altogether too miserable to contemplate slogging off up a hill so we went and had a look round Inverary Jail instead. Its heyday was the 19th century and there were rollicking tales of crime and punishment on display there. You could be punished for not going to the kirk of course, thieves were branded with the letter T on their cheeks, and other miscreants could be nailed to a post by their ear for an hour - jolly times. One man was found guilty of er.. misbehaving with his horse. He was strangled and his body burnt - and they also killed the horse! We stayed in Tarbet that night but there was no food to be had so we nipped back to Arrochar and had a spicy beanburger and chips at the take-away and a pint in the Loch Long Hotel for old times sake. Then back to Tarbet where the only pub, as far as we could see, was the Tarbet Hotel - a massively solid, gothic pile at the junction of the A82 and A83. There a 60 year old crooner was soothing the savage breasts quite competently, while a plump barmaid from North Yorks (Marie) was doling out the pints. The Day of Destiny (Monday) finally arrived. Not a bad day, dry but with cloud at around the 2000 ft level. The cloud was thin stuff though, not dense murk, so you could still tell pretty much where you were going. Sort of. We started out at 10.10. There was a slight diversion due to logging so the first stretch was a sideways loop along a forestry track, but then the path set off pretty much directly towards Beinn Narnain.
I don't remember the going being too hard although the note I made at the time says 'steep, reasonable path'. Beyond the lower slopes it was quite rocky and there were several snow ladders in places with quite steep inclines.
It stayed dry and at times the sun would almost break through or the cloud lift for a minute. We reached the summit at 1:10, a barren, rocky place with a tall, thin trig point; too cloudy to get any good views of the world. Not lingering there too long we pressed on, descended to the wide, open space of the Bealach a Mhaim and set off up Beinn Ime. Thin cloud, some views and the path mostly ok but had to be supplemented by compass at times because of the visibility and because it lost itself occasionally over rock or under snow. Overall rocky, icy and snowy and quite steep in places. At times we navigated by following a set of footprints in the snow, just assuming that our predecessor had known what he was doing - and of course as I'm still here I guess he did.
We reached the top of Beinn Ime at 3.00 - the remains of a trig point are there, surrounded by a large stone windbreak. Straightforward descent back down to the bealach and then, following the pass between Beinn Narnain and Ben Arthur (The Cobbler), on down a good path by the Allt a Bhalachain until we met the track we started off on. I think it was about 5.00 when we got back but I forgot to note it. We had an eventful drive south looking for somewhere to stay, getting caught up in diversions and loads of places with no room at the inn before eventually coming off the M74 at Crawford, a small village pretty much cut off since the motorway carved its way past. It was 8.55 when we pulled up outside the Tudor House Hotel where they kindly did us some macaroni and chips which we supplemented with five and half pints of Tenants - ok, six pints for Andrew. There was a chap there who'd worked in Ramsbottom - Colin. His wife was called Denise.
We stayed the night there and drove home the next day. | ||||||
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