Stob Coire a’ Chearcaill is a curiously-named peak because the corrie from which it takes its name is not especially circular. But then we never saw a yew on the subsidiary top of Sgurr an Iubhair either…
I’ve known Lucy and Wally Wallace since we did Winter Mountain Leader Training together six years ago, and we’ve remained good friends. They’ve been escaping Arran for a few weeks to walk, climb, work etc. from Achaphubuil, so we had to do something together while they were up. Except that Wally further escaped to go climbing on the Ben the day Lucy and I set out to climb their new pet mountain (and my second-last Ardgour Corbett) Stob Coire a’ Chearcaill! So we just had to do it for him… starting and finishing by Gleann Sron a’ Chreagain with a 2.5-mile detour to pick up the Graham Top of Sgurr an Iubhair (Lucy made me… and my nose is growing!) and gaze unimpeded at the Heart of Ardgour (fantastic views in all directions, but possibly most distant to the south-west with the Paps of Jura clear and the Mull Ben More having remarkable presence) before short-cutting a full return circuit by 558 and Meall Ruadh to dive back into the Glen. Where we found some rough/tussocky ground and the odd avoidable craglet on our descent through the woods before encountering the stags-that-don’t-run (some of which you see below) further down. Oh, and we saw the eagles the birdwatchers missed, so I guess you could say we had a good day!
So Lucy leaves raving about the area and I get to colour in one more star in my increasingly sunny-looking constellation of Ardgour/Morvern/Moidart Corbetts. But why have I left one ‘Corbett Top’ (diamond) in here? Because Druim Garbh (west of Sgurr Dhomhnuill) is one of the eight with drops of between 450 and 500ft suggested by Robin Campbell’s research to have been removed from the tables on the erroneous assumption that Corbett’s criterion for inclusion was a drop of 500ft, and therefore not just a Top in my book (and, mark my words, we’ll see the Corbetts officially defined by 450ft drop one day!)…
