Mount Keen from Glen Esk, Big Country Biking (ish)

On Wednesday after tiring Lilly dawg out and leaving her in the hands of our wonderful doggy walker, we headed up the east coast with the bikes, to the Glen Esk side of Mount Keen.

Mount Keen is Scotland's most easterly munro, and also a rather dull one as the landrover track leads right up to 1.5km before the summit. However, on a mountain bike its quite good fun, and if you want to tick off all the munros it will need to be done at some point!

The weather was awesome, but quite windy. Once again we didn't set off from the car until after lunch meaning all of the walkers were walking down as we were ascending. Our late start meant we didn't scare any of them on the descent, and only caught up with the last one on the flat track back to the car.

The route starts off on flat land rover track for about 4.5km until you reach the wee cottage which marks the start of the main ascent.

Having a break before the ascent starts

Sections of the landy track going up the side of the hill are rideable, and parts aren't. There are loads of loose melon sized rocks so not much traction (especially when you're unfit like us and sitting in granny gear), so we pushed these bits. Once you reach the walkers path, its totally rideable until the hike-a-bike section through the boulder field. Considering its not that steep you could just push/lift the bike up, but we found carrying them to be much faster.

 

Happy faces at the summit

Happy bikes at the summit!

The descent from the summit was by far the best bit of the day. Nice wee techy boulder field to negotiate, followed by bunny hopping the drainage ditches before reaching the landy track again.

Heres a short video showing some of the top bits:



Mount Keen 26.6.13 from GetOutAdventures on Vimeo.

The landy track descent was mediocre, although a lot of speed could be gained which was good. It took us about 35 minutes to get from the summit back to the car including the wee bit of faff taking a few videos at the top. In total the whole route took us 3.5 hours, including a stop for lunch.

 

Tongue out concentration!

 

Ben Chonzie could be on the cards tomorrow evening, we shall see.

Stuc an Lochain with Lilly

On Tuesday we took our westie, Lilly up Stuc an Lochain in Glen Lyon. This hill is rather easy for munro standards, as you park the car at 400m.

Last year we took her up Meall Bhuide, another munro on the other side of the road which she loved. Stuc an Lochain was a bit harder going for her though - a much steeper rockier ascent. We had to lift her over a few big rocky steps that were double her height, but other than that she did awesome and her mini legs took her all the way to the summit :)

The summit of Stuc an Lochain

Lilly on the summit cairn :)

 

mmmm shortbread!

Lil slept the whole way home and was rewarded with a nice big chunk of raw sirlion steak. nom nom :D

The Forcan Ridge

On Monday Keith and I headed back up to Glen Sheil, purely because we were too interested in watching Burn Notice on Sunday night to start thinking about what to do with the next two days until 10.30pm. We knew we had a couple of days worth of hills left to do up there, so packed up the gear and off we went.

MWIS had predicted a 30% chance of cloud free munros for the North West, so we weren't hopeful on awesome views from the summits (most of the hills we've done up that way have been in the cloud). We had always said we wanted to do the Forcan Ridge in the good weather since it looked like such an amazing day out...so it wasn't actually on the cards until we reached Fort William and it was still beaming sunshine.

The weather was an opportunity not to be wasted so Forcan Ridge it was. This ridge walk is a grade 2/3 scramble, with options to by-pass the majority of the hard bits and keep it at a grade 1/2.

view of the ridge from the walk up

The Start

What lies ahead

One of the spicier sections (grade 3?) - theres an easier option to the right

We opted for the direct line along the ridge, which takes in the harder (fun) sections. There is a bit of loose chossy rock about, felt a wee bit vulnerable at times without a helmet, but its totally fine as long as you stay close together so the other person doesn't get a knock to the head if anythings kicked off :)

The summit now in sight

We've made it - cereal bar time.

At the end of the ridge you reach the summit of The Saddle (1011m). We refuelled and then dropped down the south east slope into a scree bowl, then down to the bealach to head up for our second munro of the day - Sgurr na Sgine (946m).  This was an easy ascent, with a wee bit of steep ground. 

A cool looking dike in the rock

Summit of munro number 2 in sight

A totally dried up mini lochan, shows how dry the ground is up there just now

A happy couple enjoying the nice weather on Sgurr na Sgine

We spent a fair bit of time at the top of this hill enjoying the views and looking out at all the hills we've done - which is now pretty much all of Glen Shiel :) 

Getting chilly now

 At 9pm we thought we better start making a descent (we didn't start until 3pm, we're not that slow!). 

A raven (centred) with a view south

The mid afternoon/evening is by far the best time of the day to walk. Cloud has a chance to burn off with the sun, its not as hot and the sunset....aaaamazing. There were 5 other cars in the lay-by when we set off, we saw a few people in the distance but didn't meet anyone the whole day. Solitude - one of the reasons I love the mountains. 

Keith at the cairn on Faochag (909m) - which marks the start of the descent

Awesome views and sunset on the way down!

This was definitely one of the best days we've had hill walking, the Forcan Ridge is a must-do (direct of course) for any keen hill walker/scrambler :) 

We made it back to the car for 11pm. It took us 2hours to descend from the summit of Sgurr na Sgine, its a well defined 'path' but isn't great for the knees (quite steep).

Heres a bonus panorama (taken by Keith). Its amazing what smart phone can do these days!

The panorama (from left to right) shows the Five Sisters of Kintail (which we did in complete mist/cloud), followed by the Glen Shiel ridge, and on the very right Sgurr na Sgine summit. 

Janey

Glen Shiel Ridge

A few days ago Keith and I went up to Glen Shiel to do the South Shiel Ridge. This takes in 7 munros and is quite a long day out. We started at the Cluanie Inn, and after our initial ascent (mostly pathless) we reached the first summit, Druim Shionnach. We headed east briefly to get the summit tick for Creag a'Mhaim, and then back west for the rest of the day taking in the next 5 munros.

 

 

The weather was nice to start off with, then eventually the rain came in, but luckily it wasnt too heavy, just constant drizzle for most of the afternoon with patches of low cloud.

 

Hating the change of weather, lunch in the bothy bag.

Our final hill for the day

We descended north between Creag nan Damh (our final munro) and Sgurr Beag. We made sure to stick to the right of the burn and waterfall as the left hand side has loads of steep gullies that apparently have caused a number of deaths over the years? This was steep and pathless in places but we met the stalkers path half way down and it was easy going from there... until the forest just before the road. This was by far the most difficult section of the day - super steep slippy muddy slope, not to forget being eaten alive by the midges as we made our way down.

We reached the road about 10km away from our car, but luckily only had to wait for a few minutes in the lay by until some kind lads picked us up. Legends. I felt quite bad getting into their clean car with my wet waterproofs and muddy boots on, but they didn't seem to mind!

Total ascent for the day was around 2500m over 22km and it took us 11 hours with quite a few breaks.

The first 6 munro summits!