Saturday 1 July 2017

Aonach Beag and Mor

Aonach Beag means 'small ridge' and is the 7th highest Scottish mountain. Aonach Mor means 'big ridge' and is the 8th highest. Totally original names them.
I knew it was gonna rain today, drizzle, totally forgetting that on the top of a mountain it's a whole lot worse. The walk started with this nice greeting.
On the way there was this cool rope bridge.
The bulk of the walk was over a generally flat bog following a river with a few rocky steps up. At the end there was a steep grassy cliff to climb up, leading to the plateau that divided the Aonachs. When i reached the bottom of this cliff it had started to rain and was quite windy. The cloud had lowered and decreased visibility. I thought i was pretty close so no point turning back now.
It was actually quite difficult and took a while to get up because it was so steep. The weather was getting worse.
At the top it flattened out into a huge grassy plateau. You could only see a few metres in any direction. I decided to go for the easier peak first which was pretty much a flat walk.
The weather was now quite severe, horizontal rain and strong wind, but i was still enjoying it.
On the way to the second peak i was now soaked to the bone and freezing and actually struggling to move. This one was steeper but not difficult apart from the weather. There was also some snow up here as well. When i got to the top, i didn't hang about and headed straight back for the path down the cliff.
Only problem was, i couldn't find it. Now is really not the time. I am dying here.
Luckily i have this gps app now. To be honest, i wouldn't have done half the things without this app. Cause when you're up a mountain in fog, there is no hope of finding the path. These paths aren't even clear when there's no fog.
The gps app isn't perfect though and gets it wrong enough so i jus had to hope it was right. Eventually i did find the path and had a nice 4 hour wet and windy slog back to me van.

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