Up and away at 5.30am sharp on Friday 20 May, I set off for Glen Coe and the iconic Buachaille Etive Mor Stob Dearg. One of Scotland’s most famous and photographed munro’s. This mountain never fails to catch my eye on my frequent drives up to Fort William.

Having arrived at 7.15am, the popular and often congested Altnafeadh layby was empty. Before me was a cloud covered 1020m Stob Dearg. It was a showery but pleasant morning, nice and peaceful with only the traffic of the A82 and chirping birds disturbing the silence.

I found this a tough climb, without finding the path, I traversed the increasingly steep boulder field. Tough because I wasn’t used to rock climbing. Once on the ridge it was much easier and honestly, less scary but unfortunately the weather worsened with wind picking up and rain becoming more persistent. The final ascend to the summit was exciting with rain, hail and ice pellets driving into my face on a gale-force sustained wind.

Thankfully conditions eased significantly as I started my decent. Back at the top of the waterfall and the first 50ft down was daunting and even got into a spot with steep, cliff-like rocks just below the ridge. I had to turn back and reclimb as I didn’t feel safe.

Eventually, having spoke to a few others climbers, I found a better way down and eventually found the path which made for smooth sailing back down.

Here are my images.

Standing on the summit of Stob Dearg. Pitty for the thick cloud.

Heading back down and the weather cleared after suffering horizontal rain and gale-force wind. Sleet and ice pellets fell over the Stob Dearg summit.

 

Tags: etive mor, stob dearg