ron-t climbing
27 December 2016 ................ Choinneachain Hill
After several days of some pretty wild weather, it was good to see some sunshine this afternoon, so I went for a quickie up to Choinneachain Hill.
Actually you can`t do a quickie up Choinneachain Hill - on the map it looks like it just going to be a quick climb up from the dam up on to the crest of the ridge, then an easy hike up the track to the summit.
It doesn`t work out that way - it is a surprisingly long climb up over quite rough ground, and it just seems to go on and on, with a few false crests just to fool you.
Going up the hills on the other side of the dam is easier going and a nicer walk, but you are in the shade the whole time, at this time of year the sun is away beyond the other side of the hill - so if you want to see the sun, then it has to be Choinneachan Hill.
This is down at the dam, looking away up the loch - when I looked over the wall it all seemed to be rather grey and gloomy, but the camera seems to have made it look quite good.
Well it did take a long time to get there, I am on the track now, and the sun is getting low already, with a nice bit of colour.
Round a bit to the right, and Carn Chòis makes it into the picture.
It turned out it wasn`t going to be an easy hike up the track either, as there were several long sections that had deep snow, and it was often easier to abandon the track, and walk up the grass and heather where there was less snow.
Further up the track, and the sun has dropped down behind a bit of cloud now, producing a nice effect.
I carried on, and by now I was getting worried about the amount of daylight left - I was still a fair chunk of time away from even the first cairn, which isn`t on the summit, it is about ten minutes walk away from it.
I stopped to take this picture - it was going to be the last of the sun, and darkness wasn`t going to be far behind.
I reckoned it would take another 10 to 15 minutes to get to the first cairn, then another 10 minutes back down to where I was - that is an extra 20 minutes or so - and that wasn`t even to get to the summit, just to the first cairn.
I knew I just wasn`t going to have enough daylight left to head on up and then get safely back down to the dam, so had to turn and head back down again from where I was. So a bit of a fail.
However it was a good thing I didn`t go on up - I got down to the dam in the last of the light - looking across the dam at the last of the afterglow beyond the opposite hill - just a wee bit of colour left.
website design by ron-t
website hosting by freevirtualservers.com
© 2024 Ron Turner
