Biking the Beinn a'Ghlo Munros

The Beinn a'Ghlo munros - awkward no matter what way you look at it. Walking alone was never going to be an option for us given the 6km of landy track/road bashing to get to the start of Carn Liath's ascent, so at the very least the bikes would be with us until there. But then the descent by Allt Bealach an Fhiodha after reaching the end of the ridge followed by 4 km of landy track to get back to where you leave the bikes didn't appeal to us on foot either. So why not take the bikes the whole way - the epic but wise choice! Especially with trashed knees that don't cope with walking downhill!

This is what we did in a clockwise direction:

It begins with a fairly dull landy track for about 17km, handrailing the river Tilt. The views are nice however, and the cycling is easy going. Makes for a good warm up before the epic hike-a-bike begins. We ascended up the NW slopes of Meall a'Mhuirich on what started off as a faint stalkers path, then had a bit of heather bashing before we rejoined some fairly well worn path to reach the plateau. This took about 2 hours as it was rather hot and the terrain underfoot was hard going with a bike on your back!

Initial landy track

Mid hike-a-bike

On better path again

We've made it!

glad to be back in the saddle

We had a massive rest and some lunch and enjoyed the views before heading on to our first munro summit - Carn nan Gabhar.

View from our lunch spot

Carn nan Gabhar summit

We saw literally hundreds of deer in Coire Cas-eagallach, which was awesome, I haven't seen that many together for a long time. Sounded like an earthquake or something when they all sprinted off. We also saw heaps of baby ptarmigans fly away about a metre from our heads which was cool :)

We reached Carn nan Gabhar at 2pm, 5.5 hours after we left the Glen Tilt car park!

Carn nan Gabhar summit

The descent from here towards the next munro (Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain) was the best of the links between hills. We were stopped not long into it by some fascinated walkers who wanted to take our picture, not going to say no to a wee bit of fame! I'm sure they'll be telling all their pals about us!

Initally there was a bit of boulder field negotiation (parts were unrideable), then it drops onto the walkers path which is awesome, loose and rocky! So much fun! And we were down at the bealach in a matter of minutes looking up at our next hike-a-bike (a short one though!).

Bikes at summit number 2

From here the descent was techy. Lots of boulder field to get through, then onto a loose scree path. We had to stop a few times for some of the bigger rocks - this is not the place to rip a mech off!

Riding the awesomeness.

We were then faced with our final ascent for the day. I ran out of water not long into this but wasnt about to turn around and head back downhill to find a stream, so I got on with it and stole a bit of what Keith had left. The heat was getting to us by this point and we had quite sore backs/shoulders from all the bike carrying. We made it though and it felt good to be at the final summit and looking down on our descent!

 

Looking back to where we came from

Sadly part of the descent off Carn Liath was unrideable. It was really loose big mech ripping blocks, really tight turns - too tight for a bike (or we're just rubbish), and just quite dangerous considering how remote the situation is. So we heather bashed for a couple hundred metres!

After that was over with though, the descent was absolutely amazing. No drainage ditches, just naturally eroded path! Bits of rock, bits of grass and bits of mud! Before long we were down at the landy track and freewheeling pretty much the whole 6km back to the car!

Carn Liath descent

The whole day took us 9.5 hours. Totalling at 35 km and 1800m of ascent. It was hard going, but we made the right choice, I wouldn't have wanted to do these munros any other way, even if my back did seriously pay for it the next day!

Heres a video of the riding:

Biking the Beinn a'Ghlo Munros from GetOutAdventures on Vimeo.