Beinn Bhuidhe - not completed!

Munro Count:
The same! 12 as I didn't find the top!!!

Accompanyment:
iPod

Munro Stats:
Height
3110 ft
"Yellow hill"

Difficulty
8/10 based on the route I actually did - steep as hell climb so it was!

Enjoyment
7/10 more for the fitness aspect of my day!!!

Route:

Little was I to know that a little more research into the route would have paid me large dividends!!! An OS map also would have been handy. But no! I'll read Mr McNeish and Munro Magic. It looks a simple enough route. Obviously not!!! Somewhere I went wrong and I'm going to blame the weather!!!

I started the day getting my bike ready as I hadn't ridden it all year and had to change my slicks to offroad tyres which took longer than anticipated!!! So off I went to the NE head of Loch Fyne and parked my car easily enough in the walkers car park. It is lamb chop season right now and they were everywhere!!! Very cute so they were:



2 roads lead the way to Inverchorachan. Don't take this one which is directly opposite the walkers carpark!!!


Take the tarmac route nearest the main road. The other route takes you through a building site with many dead ends before going through a field where you have to play chicken with a herd of coos!!! (Which also was fun!) They meet together anyway 2.5 miles along the 5 mile cycle-in to the start of the Munro. You pass a few houses (marked Glenfyne on Mr McNeish's book) and a little further on the road forks. I went left and presumed that the building on the right was Inverchorachan - marking the start of the climb up to Beinn Bhuidhe...



Wrong!!! On my return home after a few further searches on the net... THIS was the building I should have stopped at:


This was obviously a little further on the path I was on - but what made me think it was the former was a gate that asked all bikers to leave their bikes here (there was a few posts for chaining up your bike). So I thought here is the start of the walk.

"Take to the slopes due W and follow the S bank of the stream to its source then bear NW up steep grass and bracken into the upper corrie"

The Munro Magic chat was:
1 Head NE on south bank of River Fyne to weir
2 Cross river and follow the road/track NW turning N to Inverchorachan
3 Leave track and ascend W by stream to Meall an Daimph
4 Ascend NNW to summit of Beinn Bhuidhe
5 Return by same route

So instead of looking up and seeing the view of the top behind that house... I looked beyond the gate where I chained my bike up and saw this:



Yes I did follow "a" stream up... but it was obviously the wrong one!!! There was no path. The ascent was steep as hell. I felt like I was in a WW2 movie in the Scottish jungle. Once I was out of woodland the ground was wet, mossy as anything and I was using my poles to dig in and basically pulled myself up the mountain. Looking back towards where my bike was:



At the top of my ascent I got myself into full waterproofs. Visibility was shocking. I climbed what I thought was the ridge leading me to the top but alas there were taller structures looming in the misty shadows. After lunch I headed for them thinking... that's be the top right there! There were trig point shaped rocks all over the place!!! Once I had climbed one wee hill there was another in the distance. At one point I shat myself as the ground swallowed me up to mid-thigh level I instantly wondered how there could be sinking sand all the way up here and in Scotland!!! After 45 minutes of doing this the weather was getting worse. Wind. Rain. Exceedingly wet and boggy underfoot. I was enjoying the walk and the closeness of my visual field... but with no prospect of magically finding the summit and no further high looming shadows to climb I decided to head back down the steep mountainside.

On my way down I slid down a lot of the mossy ground which was like 4 duvet covers on top of each other to walk on. Great going down but absolutely shite to climb up!!! So down I slid and got back to my untouched bike (if only it took that long! 5 seconds of sliding then on my bike!!! Ha ha ha!!!). Saw some Heilan coos and some deer (bottom right of pic) on my way back which was nice but my then I just wanted the warmth of my car & to be home:





Got back and was knackered! So glad I brought the bike though!!! After the 12 miles of walking on Mount Keen I did previously I'll never walk that sort of a walk-in to a Munro again if I can help it!!! A bit disappointed but the fact that I never saw the excellent surrounding views means that maybe fate had something to do with getting it completely wrong this time!!! I'll be back!!!


Hints:
Read the above and don't do what I did!!! Look out for that house!!!

Timing:
Supposed to take 6 hours if you get the route right - walking that is. My escapade took me 4 hours but I was hardly stopping due to the downpour and I cycled in.