Ben Dorain

What a fantastic way to finish 2007. After the last couple of wind ripped outings we had a calm, still day with good powdery snow and some amazing lighting thrown in for good measure. Definately much colder air temperature than previous trips (ice forming on my rucksack and jacket while walking) but feeling much more pleasant due to the absence of any wind.


We parked at the Bridge or Orchy rail station and headed up the hillside, deciding to take the more direct route rather than the usual gulley approach which turned out to be a great decision. Once up at height the long summit ridge is much more interesting than the view from the roadside would have you believe, in fact, from the road this looks like a big smooth whaleback shaped mountain but the reality is a craggy ridge with some serious cliffs to the east side which I'll definitely be visiting again.

On the way back down we were treated to a Broken Spectre, the same lighting phenomenon as John and I saw in Glen Shiel in the summer. Again very hard to photograph but you can almost make it out in the pics below. We descended the scree filled gulley passing quite a few groups on the way, probably the busiest hill I've seen for quite a while.

Brilliant trip to end the year, hopefully we'll have a good dump of snow between now and mid January when I'll be back out again.