Lochan Beinn Chabhair
Sometimes you wait ages for a bus and then three arrive in quick succession. This weekend it was a bit like that for me with new Munros. Nothing in years and then two in a weekend. Sunday’s target was Beinn Chabhair, which might mean hill of the hawk according to Cameron McNeish’s Munros book. A steep climb on a good path alongside the falls of Beinglas Burn brought us to a boggy plateau and more gentle climbing to Lochan Beinn Chabhair. This was a wild and atmospheric spot which my photo doesn’t do justice to at all. I didn’t climb high enough to get a decent vantage point. Still, Robin, who did, paid for his artistic endeavour when a singularly green section of hillside revealed itself to be more liquid than most and he sank to his oxters. (Well – actually not so deep, I just like the word oxters.)
We skirted around the lochan and then picked our way through the crags so that we could traverse the ridge from East to West, only finding a faint path as we neared the summit, but finding a good path from that point on. Unlike the day before, the cloud offered no promise of respite. There were flakes of snow in the air and everything was rimed with ice.
The obligatory summit photo OR ‘Whatever Happened to the Bash Street Kids?’
Rime
On the way up past the burn I had a close encounter with a black feral goat with very impressive horns, but wasn’t quick enough retrieving my camera from my sack. Later I also spotted a solitary ptarmigan.
I’ve had another peek at my Munros map since yesterdays post and realised that the total I gave is (not particularly surprisingly) wrong. I didn’t count the Monadhliath hills, because they aren’t ticked off on the map, but I definitely did them, on an epic day which I would hardly forget, and I’m afraid that I have absolutely no intention of doing them again. And Ben Cruachan – didn’t I do that once too? Oh well – not to worry. I think that I can safely say that I’ve done at least 150 Munros and possibly more. Meanwhile Robin is now, without doubt on 3 and will probably finish before me, even if that is in the 24th Century.
Beating The Bounds 
Can you name the Bash Street Kids. Which one of us is Plug (the only one I can remember)?
Easy – Danny, ‘Erbert, Fatty, Plug, Sidney, Toots, Smiffy, Spotty, Wilfred and Cuthbert Cringeworthy. Hard to believe that my trivia knowledge out-stripped yours!
Not true either – I cheated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bash_Street_Kids
I thought that George was looking a bit Plug here, that’s what put me in mind of the Bash Street Crew.