Beaging for Mor - Dog's wish granted on the Aonachs

P1050685

Aonachs summit camp

Date 17 & 18 August 2016

Hills: Aonach Mor and Aonach Beag

Before this summer, we'd been wondering whether our ageing dog still had any more hills left in her. She'd coped well with the badlands of Cnoc Ruighean na Sgainn, then with the jungle of Sgorr nam Fiannaidh. Things were looking promising. Being responsible, empowering adults, though, we first sat Sadie down and asked her if she was up to something more serious. With Explorer 392 open on my knee, by lucky chance she answered "I fancy the Aonachs over the Bealach Cumhann from the Waterfall Carpark, maybe with a summit camp". (What she actually said was, of course, wwwwrrff! but C and I are now fitted with a predictive text software which enables us to correctly intuit Sadie's very specific requests from the most basic of prompts. It can even deal with Gaelic place-names. Clever stuff, eh?)

So it was a mid-day start from a basking, bustling Waterfall Carpark. Two minutes straight up the hillside, though, and we were on our own. The first target was the Bealach Cumhann. Hot work through tall grass, with only occasional hints of a track…

Up on the Bealach we met a young man who was working for the John Muir Trust. He was monitoring little black butterflies, which we'd noticed on the way up. (We asked him what they were called and he couldn't remember. Still, what's in a name?) Actually, there were probably quite a few in this scene…

…though sadly they didn't make it to even single-pixel status.

From here, the route ahead…

…was clear. Contour round to the Allt Coire Giubhsachan, then follow it up to its source on the bealach before turning right up onto the Aonachs.

Coire Giubhsachan…

…is a favourite of mine. Hidden from below, and circled by the grandest mountains Scotland has to offer.

At least in this dry weather, the track up the west side of the stream…

…is a pleasure to follow.

For each of us, I suspect there are places in the hills which hold a peculiar significance. The bealach between Carn Mor Dearg and the Aonachs is such a place for me. I remember looking down here from the top of Carn Mor Dearg on a summer's evening when I was still a student. I had no real idea of what I was looking at. What I did know was that I wanted to be heading in that direction, and over onto the hills beyond, rather than returning to civilisation. Thirty years on (the best things are worth waiting for) I was at last heading in that direction. Here's the view back towards Carn Mor Dearg and the Ben…

… from the grind up Aonach Mor. We dumped the packs near the bealach and headed up to the summit.

From there we retracked our way down the whaleback ridge, with its distinctive narrow neck of a bealach…

…then up the other side, looking back to Aonach Mor…

…until we reached day's end on…

… Aonach Beag.

We set up camp a few yards down from the summit, and went back up to the cairn to cook. The dog was pooped with the heat, but being a pack animal at heart, decided she was better off with us…

…than without. There's no /images/hills/.JPG for taste. Still, all told it was darn pleasant. I can't remember too many other evenings at 4000ft when we've been lolling round in shorts and t-shirts.

There wasn't actually a sunset to speak of, but the light over on the Mamores…

…was fairly special.

The hills were still there in the morning too…

…with the Ben looming over us from next door…

Packed up and away by eight, with the cloud starting to lift and play…

The return route was down the SW ridge of Aonach Beag, with views over towards…

…Car Mor Dearg.

A first view of Steall…

…a last view back to the Ben…

…then a walk back through Steall Meadow…

…and, just to tick yet another box on the Perfect Route chart, the woodland path through the gorge…

As so often with what we do on the hill, this is a route which could have been done in a day. But, as always when I scan back through the images of our trips, it's the ones around the high camp that grab me most. And I know I don't get those if I dash back to civilisation at the end of the day.