Just back from glencoe. tried a different variant of my previous 2 routes in the area. this one I'm calling the Clachaig Clamber. it starts and finishes at the Clachaig and in between goes over aonach eagach, continues along the ridge to devils staircase, down to the lagangarbh, up lagangarbh buttress on the buachaille, along to the end, down very steeply to glen etive for a full on midge fest, ford the river and straight up ben chascaig in the dark. Then on to Creise, Meall a Bhuiridh and down to Ba Cottage, before taking the west highland way for a couple of miles, then up Stob Coire Odhar and Stob Ghabhar. From there straight down the steep slopes and up the tortuous slopes on the other side to meall nan eun (not a good idea), then on over the tops to ben starav. down to glen etive then up Fhionnlaidh, over sgor na Udlaidh and Ben Maol Chaluim, finishing on Bidean and Stob Coire nan Lochan before making it for last orders at the bar.
statistics don't bear justice to the toughness of this route - I reckon its about 56 miles and 30000 feet of ascent - but the ground is truly testing - knee high grass tussocks, crags and trackless in many places as well as very steep. I'd forgotten how tiring this is. I was going for 24 hours but in the end had to settle for 30. It sounds very slow (and was), but actually I was going pretty well to begin with (2 hours from clachaig to the far end of the aonach eagach), but the ground is so unrelentingly steep and difficult that it massacres the legs, especially carrying a sack round, and you don't do much running. My legs ached so much that I couldn't even sleep properly once I'd finished despite being very, very tired. Anyway had a great day and a bit out and should have some nice pics.
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Originally Posted by IainR
. would be good to include a scramble on aonach dubh and stob coire nam beith instead of quite a short scramble on the buachaille. I'd forgotten how wonderful the rock is round there. It felt pretty serious though at 8.30 in the evening on my tod as the rain beat down and I tried to find the route up the buttress (which I'd never been up before) on the buachaille.