I was up on top of the right hand peak 2 hours ago shrouded in cloud. Now back athe car with a brew.
A fine day for a walk so after pouring over the maps at breakfast time I decided to head for Ben Griam Beg. A first time for me.
Loaded up the car and drove down the Strath and found a good place to park just north of the track that heads into Greamachary Cottage, its a private estate road and a railway crossing at the start so a couple of miles of easy good track to warm up before hitting the hill proper
Once I set off I realised I had left my map on the kitchen table at home and had stuck the Ben Hope map in my rucksack. Thank goodness for clear weather the OS map app and a relatively short steep climb on the hill.
After the cottage the track disappears and you are left with tussocks and bog to pick you way through before it starts to steepen up and get a bit drier under foot. I followed a stream for a while before turning up the hill. Again I am not sure I picked the best route up but there are spectacular views to be had in all directions. On the way up you can see the remains of an old hill Fort. Must off been Hardy buggers that built it and inhabited in years gone by.
Once at the summit it clouded over for 5 minutes and quickly cleared as fast as it arrived due to the wind quickly blowing it past, the poor old trig point at the top has seen better days
I took a slightly different route down off the summit which was steeper but better underfoot than the way up and made pretty good time back to the cottage and then back to the car for a quick brew and then away back home to listen to the dog snore and fart under the kitchen table............
Today was also my first outing with my paramo enduro fleece, worn on top of a berghaus base layer it kept me comfortable all day and more importantly helped shift my sweat very fast so at no point did I feel clamy cold or wet which is something I have found with other fleeces, it wasnt cold enough to need an extra layer on top but I did have another fleece and a paramo fuero smock in my back pack. I had also taken my craghoppers waterproofs just in case. I have only just got the paramo gear recently and have heard some folk don't get on well with it if it gets wet hence the waterproofs stashed as a back up.
