Beinn Sgulaird

If my last Munroing expedition was a disaster in which very little went right; today's was the opposite - one of the best days in the hills I have ever had! My wife & I enjoyed a night out in Oban, first at Coasters bar, and then a fantastic late meal at the Ee:usk fish restaurant, whose beautifully cooked fishcakes, haddock, monkfish and sea bass, were accompanied by a stunning sunset from the premises' huge windows. Eating fresh seafood, while watching the boats and ferries come and go from Oban's bustling harbour was a wonderful experience!

A good cooked breakfast in the farmhouse B&B we found via the tourist office (perhaps the last available room in Oban), set us up for a a day in the hills. We selected the closest Munro, Beinn Sgulaird, which neither of us had climbed; and made for the starting point at Druimavuich, at the head of Loch Creran.

It is perhaps a sign of the inordinate length of time it is taking me to pursue the Munro summits, that my OS maps are starting to become out of date. The massively engineered bulldozed track which skirts Druimavuich and ascends eastwards up and over the Coire Bhuidhe, is on recent maps, but not mine! The matter was quickly resolved with the help of an elderly Corbett-bagger, whose state-of-the-art smart phone contained accurate up-to-date mapping! Just as we were leaving, a familiar face appeared, on his bike. Jim Stewart from Perth, training for an Iron Man event was doing the circuit of upper Loch Creran - and stopped for a blether!

The new track climbs sharply into the hillside, until at the top of a zig-zag, a nice cairn points the walker to turn left and strike up the ridge past a large erratic, the the first top at 488m. The path continues all the way past this top, down a sharp descent and up and along the ridge to the major top at 863m. The ridge then turns NE and undulates over some subsidiary tops until the glorious summit of Beinn Sgulaird is gained at 937m.

The views from this summit were quite stunning. So many distinctive hills were easy to pick out, The Paps of Jura, Ben More (Mull), Beinn an Beithir, The Buachaiiles, Bitean nam Ban, Ben Nevis - and more. Beyond that were hundreds of mountains we couldn't name. It was ... stunning. My wife reckons these were the best mountain views she has ever seen n Scotland, and she has seen a few. Not only was the visibility excellent, but the sun shone, and the wind blew, to keep down the midgies. 

We baled off the the back of the hill, down a steep stony gully, and traversed around the bottom of the hill to pick up the new track back to Druimavuich, the car and then home.

Hill days just don't 'get much better than this!