29/02/16 - Beinn Chabhair (attempt) (me, Steve)

We set off fairly early for our last day knowing that we had a long drive at the end of the day. The weather had taken a definite change for the worse and as we drove south there was much banter about whether either of us wanted to bail and just carry on home. I was up for the walk, but wouldn't have taken much convincing not to bother.

We struggled to find the path which led up the left of the stream (as the route suggested), so carried on up the right - it was steep and slippery. Hard going, especially in the rain.

We came to the top of the first section and managed to get across the stream to the proper path. There was a path, but it was very boggy. We knew we need to bear left up the hill at some point, but struggled to find the correction point, so we just bore left and up and aimed for one point at a time.

The snow was now getting pretty deep, but wasn't right for crampons. The wind was also strong, as was the rain/sleet/snow. During yesterday, it felt like mountaineering was the best hobby in the world, today the argument was less convincing.

We clambered precariously to the top of one outcrop only to need to descend before the next one. Steve's phone was giving disappointing gps locations (in terms of height and distance from the summit). We came to an opening before a gorge which could make a suitable ascent to the crest of mountain, but visibility rapidly deteriorated. We checked on Steve's phone, but it died on us. Now, I had my phone and a back-up gps, but it was clear that neither of us had our heart in carrying on. So we "called it" and made a speedy retreat.

We spotted a couple of walkers in the distance and later bumped into another couple who were with them. They'd take a more direct route that us which would undoubtedly be better during poor visibility. What's more visibility had returned as soon as we got out of that specific location. So it did urk a bit that we'd not made it to the top. Still it felt good that we'd now have time for a quick pint in the Drovers Inn...

The descent took longer than expected as always (despite Steve pretty much running down), the last section was particularly steep. My knees started to twinge a bit, but overall I still felt pretty good. My shoes hadn't ached much and most importantly, no shin splints!

We settled on having a full meal in the Drovers Inn.

The journey home was quiet and uneventful - other than the news of an accident on the M74 southbound from Glasgow which had closed the motorway. We were ahead of it by then, but had we finished the walk we undoubtedly would have been stuck in traffic for a fair while.

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