Post Number 10 (Onich)

Beinn Dubchraig and Ben Oss.
12.5 miles 4232 feet of ascent.

This round was completed yesterday (Thursday 18th June) in appalling weather. It rained nearly all the time and the rain was driven by very strong winds. I was blown off my feet on several occasions. Despite all this the clouds were relatively high and I did have some decent views. The SMC guide recommends returning by the same route, that is back over Beinn Dubhchraig but I decided to descend from the col between Ben Oss and Beinn Dubhchraig. This is quite a steep pathless grass descent and some care was needed and the old knee was quite painful by then. The advantage of this return route was a walk out of the glen of about three miles on a Land Rover track instead of the rough muddy, tree root strewn woodland track of the ascent. The disadvantage was the need to cross the river in the glen; here I did a Nicholas Crane – that is I just waded across boots and all, and surprisingly the remaining walk out was no less comfortable with the wet boots.
My caravan has blown air heating and I can direct all of this into the toilet compartment and this makes a very efficient drying room. As I write next morning everything including my boots is now dry. I have decided that I will have rest days in between to give the knee some chance of recovery, and in any case the weather is still foul, although the forecast for next week is good.The first two pics give some idea of the amount of rain that has fallen in the last few days. Number three shows the summit of Beinn Dubhchraig sticking up above the summit cairn on Ben Oss. Pic number four shows the col between Beinn Dubhchraig and Ben Oss which I descended (Ben Oss is the one on the right). The statistics at the top of this post are taken from a route plot on Memory Map.