Otherwise known as Stob Coire Easain and Chno Dearg
I had planned a trip around Loch Treig for a while, this would take in the two summits mentioned here with an option to visit Cruach Innse and Sgurr Innse GM/WS-147 and GM/WS-166 if I was feeling particularly energetic. Spoiler alert - I wasn’t!!
The trip would involve a campout somewhere between the two big hills.
Stob Coire Easain is often climbed from the north east via the Munro Stob a Choire Mheadhoin - this gives a fine overall walk with one section that is very steep and “a bit exposed”. Not so easy with a heavy pack. A chap I’d chatted with in the car-park was doing the same walk, so as I caught him up, we did a bit route finding together which helped a lot. On reaching the first summit we both had a breather and I took some pics. The weather was absolutely great! A light breeze, sunny - no midges or other flying critters to spoil things.
The Innses from above.
Stob Coire Easain on the left and mountains as far as your eye can see!!
(I’ll stick all the photos taken in a google album for all.)
The drop and re-ascent was a lot easier than you might first think, being a fairly gentle slope around the rim of the corrie - the track easy to follow and footing good.
Once at the top, I found a rather handy lump of rock to sit behind - it kept off the very gentle breezy and gave a back rest.
For this trip, I’d chosen to do some SSB which I hadn’t done much of for a while (as I’d been doing Morse), so the rig was FT-817 - handy for 145-fm too obviously - not that it’s very light. (Does that count as an anvil Andy @MM0FMF ?) This would mean some faithful SSB chasers might get a few points.
2m-FM was first port of call and a self spot gave a S2S with Archie GM4KNU/P over on Ben Challum GM/CS-021 - that was a good start - Jack @GM4COX was quick off the mark too and we had a “wee chat”. No other takers on 2m so switch over to HF and 40m. This gave a good run of 9 QSOs - the band not being as noisy as I thought it would be.
20m gave another 10 QSOs with 2 S2S into France and Switzerland.
I had a listen around on other bands but decided to move on to the overnight spot.
This was down near to Loch Treig
My route off the mountain went a bit too far north , avoiding using the ridge to descend - this was a mistake as the path shown alongside the river was fictional, so the walking was difficult in places.
Anyway I camped up in the bottom right, between the red line and the railway line - there are not many trains use it per day and I was not disturbed.
I did however wonder why I was seeing my own shadow inside the tent when I had no light on! On sticking my head out, the reason was clear - the moon was HUGE and very bright. It was amazing to see the mountains Gray Corries etc by such a powerful moonlight.
Next morning, looking out gave the sun up and shining on … and the moon above it - I tried to capture this but my camera phone doesn’t do it justice at all.
Up and off to Chno Dearg - the valley up to the ridge was torture - there was good sunshine, hot and not a breath of wind. I made a point of stopping every 20 mins to drink more and take some trail mixture. (My camelback valve is leaking so I was using ali bottles this trip). Once up on the ridge, the walking was very pleasant and the top came in to view soon enough - I’d spent plenty time taking in the amazing panoramas .
On the top there was a young chap - we got chatting and turns out he’d been on Ben Challum the day before and seen Archie in action.
GM/WS-032 activation
2m-fm first and I’d barely taken my finger off the mic and there was Jack to start me off - as usual we chatted and one of us must have drawn breath and Andy @MM0FMF managed to break in for an S2S when he was over on GM/SS-001
One other 2m-fm QSO then it was on to 40m 8 QSOs resulting ten 15m gave 7 including 1 S2S
17m gave a further 7 QSOs with a couple of repeats Chris @F4WBN following me around ha ha! 10m gave another coulple of QSOs.
It was time to pack up and start heading down hill. The middle section of the descent was more “make your own path” work over what would (I suspect ) be very wet and horrible some times.
I was back at the car 32hrs after leaving it.
(Side note - way back when I was young(er) - I did this route around the loch, taking in Beinn na Lap too all in a day including driving 100 miles there and back , mind you I wasn’t carrying any load then.)
More pictures - at some point during the day, I just started trying to capture the beauty of the scenes in my head. It was also nice to pick off the summits I’d activated earlier in the year on another trip. Nice view.... Beinn A'Chlachair GM/WS-023, Geal Charn GM/WS-031 and Binnein Shios GM/WS-239
Stob Choire Easain in the middle - yesterdays summit from part way up Chno Dearg.
Left to right near distance Binnein Shuas GM/WS-198, Binnein Shios 239 hides behind it, then over on the right Beinn a’Chlachair GM/WS-023 and Geal Charn GM/WS-031 hides behind that!
The drive home gave more “capture that picture in your head” moments as Loch Laggan to the north of these last three hills mentioned, was absolutely flat calm - the whole loch! So I had both inverted and right way up hills. Memories are made of this!
Total distance walked - 31km and 1906m ascent.
Link to Sota Shares album - these are in chronological order, starting from the top of the first summit mentioned.
Thanks for getting this far and huge thanks to all chasers, I appreciated your help in making the days a success.
Alan