The friends I was staying with planned to climb the Corbett, Beinn Tharsuinn, from Craig in Glen Carron. As I had already climbed this hill on ascents of the remote Munro, Lurg Mhor, I decided to climb the Munros, Sgurr Choinnich and Sgurr a’ Chaorachain and accompany them as far as the Bealach Bhearnais.
We parked in the small forest car park on the north side of the A890 at Craig, where there was evidence of recent storm damage, then walked across the main road and a level crossing to reach the vehicle track on the south side of the railway line. There was a slight loss of height as we headed east to the bridge over the River Carron passing a power house related to the hydro scheme on the Allt a’ Chonais.
The track, which had been improved for the construction of this dam, ran south-east on a steady gradient and led to a gate in the deer fence.
Beyond this gate the track turned south and once past the dam it crossed a level area and here the track was rather rough with larger stones used to fill holes.
The track later turned east and at this point we left it and followed a wet path to the Allt a’ Chonais and to a two strand wire bridge. The water was fairly low so while some used the bridge others walked across the stream.
A rough and in places wet path led up the north side of the Allt Leathad an Tobair to the Bealach Bhearnais.
Before reaching this col I left my friends and climbed onto the west ridge of Sgurr Choinnich.
Its ascent entailed a couple of easy scrambles but with very few snow patches good progress was made. Sgurr Choinnich’s summit cairn was reached with views across to Beinn Tharsuinn and Lurg Mhor.
A short walk south-east took me to the start of the descent where there was a small area of hard packed snow to cross. Once over it the stony path was clear until lower down where a couple of larger snow patches were crossed but the snow here was softer and gave some grip.
There were more snow patches to cross as I ascended Sgurr a’ Chaorachain with some areas of snow and ice on the higher rocky sections. On reaching the summit cairn I stopped for a break.
The ground around this cairn was icy so I decided to fit crampons before commencing the descent of Sgurr a’ Chaorachain’s north ridge which initially made for an easy descent. Once out of the snow and ice I removed the crampons and descended more steeply towards Pollan Buidhe. Lower down the going was rough with several peat hags to cross as well as the Allt Leathad an Tobair before I reached the path near the wire bridge.
I arrived there around five minutes before my friends whom I had spotted, through binoculars, on their descent from the Bealach Bhearnais as well as on their earlier ascent of Beinn Tharsuinn. We then followed the vehicle track back to Craig.
- Time taken – 8 hours.
- Distance – 20.25 kilometres.
- Height climbed – 1305 metres.