Today’s ascent of Beinn a’ Chrulaiste was my third of this splendidly-situated Corbett opposite the Buachaille Etive Mor, but I’d never done its eastern Graham Tops before and it all seemed like a good idea when I set out on a rainy afternoon with real wind forecast for tomorrow…
Now it was already wet enough by the time I got to Kingshouse to think starting in waterproofs a good idea, but my hastily-grabbed jacket and overtrousers turned out to be two jackets and nae troosers so I just donned the better jacket and took off in my shorts! Hadn’t checked Scrambles in Lochaber for the Pink Rib (obvious way to start a clockwise circuit from the Kingshouse) since I’d just assumed I could find it having both been up and down it once before and seen it hundreds of times, but still nearly ran right past it in the clag! (Note that the obvious, sure-fire way to locate it if you can’t see it is to leave the West Highland Way/Old Military Road near its high point where the Coupall takes an obvious turn south away from the A82 and head straight uphill from there.) A good choice, however, for a less-than-stellar day as probably the easiest graded scramble I can think of (straightforward enough to have descended without hands in July 2007!), and I probably got the best of the afternoon on it as the rain briefly abated to give tantalising glimpses of the big Buachaille across the glen.
So I got to the top of Beinn a’ Chrulaiste without further ado, but it was (metaphorically) all downhill after that as I bashed round those spread-out Graham Tops (rough ground with boggy bealachs and hags, but never particularly awkward) in increasingly wet, windy and chilly conditions to arrive back at the van, and finally home, with all nine fingers tingling, turning white and providing about as much tactile sensation as lumps of wood. But that’s unfortunately pretty normal for me mixing even slight cold (and I was wearing gloves!) with Raynaud’s or Raynaud’s-like symptoms, and they do eventually thaw out again!
