adventuring on clach glas

Sun, Jan 26, 2014

Sunday morning I finished off my TMA for the OU music course I’m doing, looked out the window and saw it was easing off. A wild morning had given way to a short lull in the storms rolling in off the Atlantic. I needed out. I needed some adventure after all that studying so headed round to Blaven, intent on not much other than wandering around.

Blaven

A wee bit up the path I was blasted by a hail storm which ripped water off the burn and thew it around like a demented demon.

At the burn crossing I turned right and headed up into the corrie, not really knowing where I was going. Just wandering. Then I remembered I’d always fancied checking out the descent from the 4m wall on the Clach Glas ridge so I walked up to the burn and staight up the steep rocks, scree and heather towards the massive cliffs dropping down from Blaven.

Clach Glas Ridge 2

It was a right old pull up the slope with a rather hairy scramble up a very loose gully which I eventually had to get out of and back onto the wet heather. Obviously no-one comes up this way!

Eventually I reached the start of the scree with the superb rocky amphitheatre encircling me above. Wild scraps of hail storm and cloud sped across the black dripping rocks. It was a magical sight.

Clach Glas Ridge 3

I was sorely tempted to head right up onto the ridge and who knows, maybe even attempt the Diff Chimney onto Blaven itself but the weather was closing in again. Wild blasts were screaming down from the cliffs and knocking me around. It was too wild and too wet to climb.

Clach Glas Ridge

So it was over to the base of the Blaven cliffs to get off the murderous scree and back down the grass. Contouring round the headwall of the corrie I made it to the ’tourist path’ and nipped back down. Across swollen burns, into the teeth of violent blasts of cold icy rain and hail that lifted the surface of the river off and threw it into my face. Fantastic!

On Blaven

A wild intermission. I’m glad I made it out.