Buachaille Etive Mor – 2 Munros
Posted by Max Hunter on 07th April, 2014
Cracks at the top of Coire na Tulaich
Summit of Stob Dearg (1022m)
On Saturday I was out with Sean. He has started munro bagging, but currently he is doing it the hard way – all of his munros to date have been in winter. He wanted me to check his route planning/choice and decision making as well as develop his winter navigation, so he can be confident in his safe independence. On the Friday he had already summited Ben Vane at the start of his long weekend.
On the Saturday we met at the main Buachaille Etive Mor car park, and started our walk up the track. We were discussing the ascent options – between the Coire na Tulaich and the buttress choices. The huge cornices still exist at the top of the coire rim, and a week ago, before the thaw started I saw that there were large cracks – a week of thaw can only make this more problematic / uncertain – so we took the safe option and went up the buttress to the west of the coire. Later – we were glad that we had – the cracks at the top of the coire (at the main climbing exit) were more numerous and wider than a week before – it really did not look inviting or a wise option! We quickly got to the summit of Stob Dearg (1022m) by noon. Sean has a ritual (involving rum!) that he will perform at the top of every munro, so after a couple of swigs of the flask we headed back down to the col, to head for the second munro at the end of the long ridge. After lots of up and down we arrived at a rocky Stob na Broige (956m) summit. After the rum, we made our way back to what we hoped would work as a descent option – coire Altruim. I had been here earlier in the season, on a cold snow stable day, and had seen huge avalanche debris at the base of the coire and the remaining enormous cornices at the coire rim. The first possibility of a descent was eliminated due to many more wide intimidating cracks back from the edge – they were clearly shouting – ‘stay back’, so we moved on to find a safe descent near the main col of the coire, and it was possible to make a traverse into the main coire bowl, and then take the main exit down to the waterfalls.
So Sean completed another 2 munros for his list – and during the descent checked out his next 2 for the next day (Sunday) – the Buachaille Etive Beag ridge. Today he planned to be on Ben Lomond. Take a look at his blog HERE.
Still a lot of snow left
A narrow ridge line
Summit of Stob na Broige (956m)
On the way down – Coire Altruim