Stob na Broige

Last Sunday was a warm sunny day, a summers day in fact and we've not had many of these this summer. We were camping in Glencoe for the weekend and started off down the Lairig Gartain just after 9am, heading for Stob na Broige 956m, which you can just see peeping out behind the conical peak of Stob Coire Altruim, one of the tops of Buchaille Etive Mor in the distance. The path up the Lairig Gartain used to be a very boggy but the NTS have recently improved it so we made good progress towards the Coire Altruim where the ascent began.




Phew! It was warm work toiling up the steep path up the Coire Altruim, there was no respite as to stop was to invite the attention of the midges, they were out in force and voracious.



Here's Lyn on the ridge leading from Stob Coire Altruim to Stob na Broige beyond, we semed to have left the midges behind, there were non on Stob na Broige



Pete and Lyn on the top of Stob na Broige, Bella doesn't seem much interested in posing. Behind us are the tops of Buchaille Etive Mor, the most prominent one is Stob na Doire, and just glimpsed behind is Stob Dearg 1022m, the Munro at the northern end of Buchaille Etive Mor and the highest point on the ridge.



Stob Dearg again here behind Pete who's heading back towards the cairn on Stob Coire Altruim, returning the same way as we came.




The view from the cairn on Stob Coire Altruim looking west over the hills on the south side of Glencoe; nearest is the ridge of Buchaille Etive Beag beyond which rises Bidean nam Bian and the peaks of Beinn a Bheithir above Ballachulish.

Comments Moderation

We love to receive your comments but someone sent some spam recently so I have been forced to set up comment moderation. So in future please still send them in and I will just read them first to make sure no one tries to take advantage of the blog. Meanwhile I have had to repost the last posting to get rid of the spam so Tess if you are out there, sorry I lost your valid comments.

We will post again soon but I just wanted to say what a good company Blacks are because I recently had trouble with my new SatMap GPS and they had it repaired in a flash and were extremely courteous, so well done Blacks and thanks to SatMap for fixing the problem too.

More interesting transport last week

The peaceful scene at Loch Mullardoch where the locals leave their transport.  Our conveyance last Thursday up the loch to the start of a long hard day climbing 3 Munros was the white boat on the top left.  This is the end of the day when the sun came out and we returned to our car after 9 hours on the hills.

When we arrived at our venue in the morning at 9am, our skipper was there along with his young aid all ready to launch the boat, and this next photo shows how it was done.

Yes Karl used a large red tractor to move the boat into position and then once it was afloat the wheels at the back retracted onto the decking at the back of the boat.  Even cleverer was the way the lid hinged up so that I did not have to get my feet wet as I boarded. Once on board though the motor refused to engage into gear, it started ok and ticked over but as soon as Karl tried to use the throttle it would not go. So we all jumped off again and just as Pete and I were looking at the map for another route up the hillside, Karl managed to meddle with some wires and got it going. Well that was lucky and so we boarded again and set off up the loch. 
It took nearly an hour to reach the beginning of the walk but on the way Karl gave us loads of information about his days hunting the red deer and the local goats. He and his companion had a pair of powerful rifles with them and they were going to drop us off and then try and bag a deer or a goat for the freezer. The goats had apparently swum ashore from the stricken Spanish vessels of the Armada in Elizabeth 1's reign and they had taken up residence on the hills one of which was our last Munro of the day called Carn nan Gobhar (Hill of the Goats) at 992 metres. I will not go into detail about the day here as Pete will be posting about our excursion soon.
I will show you one last photo though as this was our first trial of a new tent we purchased at Ultimate Outdoors in Keswick. We had bought the tent so that when we camped for longer than a couple of days we could do so with more room for our kit etc. It's all very well camping wild with small tents but when you want to stay longer it does mean you soon become exasperated with the lack of space for all the clothes and food you need to take. Hence the need to admit that our camping was a little too uncomfortable sometimes and that Bella needed more space and a play area for when it was wet. She is two and a half years old now but still insists on playing ball games and tug of war whenever she can enlist one of us to comply with her wishes ;-)   Of course the funniest thing about the new tent was the way she stuck her head out of the side door and kept a watch for anything which moved......Well she was in luck because at Tyndrum there were rabbits.......We had to make sure she was well tied up or there would have been a heck of a disruption on site if she set off after them.....She did watch one for quite a long time whilst we broke camp and lay there quivering with excitement to be at the chase.
This last photo shows Bella at the side door looking for trouble. Note I have her on a tight lead.

The photo was taken at Cannich where we stayed for the first 3 nights and then we had 2 at Tyndrum.