| Aonach Beag (Badenoch) Group Carn Dearg, Geal Charn, Aonach Beag, Beinn Eibhinn 19 – 22 July 1997 |
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Like the walk over Ben Alder earlier in the year I started this walk from Dalwhinnie station in the mid afternoon after catching a train from Glasgow, and then followed the track along Loch Ericht to the Ben Alder Lodge where it leaves the lochside to climb slightly towards Loch Pattack. I camped that night on the eastern side of the Allt a'Chaoil-reidhe near Loch Pattack, next to a footbridge across the river.The following morning I crossed the bridge and continued to follow the track westwards past the southwest end of Loch Pattack to the highest point in the track. At this point I left the track to climb the heather covered slopes of the northeast end of the Carn Dearg ridge, gaining the ridge just to the west of the Coire Sron an Nid. From here a level route led south west along the ridge for about 1km before the final climb onto the summit of Carn Dearg, the first Munro of this walk. From the summit I then followed the ridge west down to the bealach of Diollaid a'Chairn and then over the small top to the west of the bealach. A short narrow ridge then climbs west south west onto the summit plateau of Geal-Charn. On the plateau, just to the south of the ridge, a stream flows through a small grassy depression before cascading down into Loch an Sgoir. I stopped here to rest and refill the water bottle, it would have made a great place to camp for the night but it was still fairly early and I wanted to get further before stopping for the night.
I continued across the plateau to the summit of Geal-Charn (not named on the OS map), then west (photo) down another fairly narrow ridge to the bealach below Aonach Beag. I descended a short distance into Coire na Coichille to the north where the ground levelled off and a small stream provided a descent camp site with views across Glen Spean to the north (photo).
The following morning I awoke to find a very large herd of deer (at least 100 animals) on the eastern side of the corrie. I returned to the beallach and then climbed west onto Aonach Beag, the highest point of the walk. I then descended south west along another fairly narrow ridge to the bealach before climbing west then north west along the ridge overlooking Lochan a'Charra Mhoir to the summit of Beinn Eibhinn (photo), the final Munro of the walk (photo). I descended west, then south into Glas Choire where there was another large herd of deer in the southern part of the corrie. I headed east then south east around the southern side of Beinn Eibhinn loosing height slowly. I then followed a route parallel to Uisge Labhair, still slowly loosing height, crossing the river just to the west of the Bealach Dubh. After crossing the river I climbed a short distance onto the path through the Bealach Dubh, and followed this north east along the Allt a'Bhealaich Dhuibh (photo) and then Allt a'Chaoil-reidhe to the bothy at Culra Lodge where I crossed the river. I followed the path along the river until about 1km south of Loch Pattack, where I camped on a grassy area beside the river.
The following morning I walked out along the path to rejoin the track along Loch Ericht above the Ben Alder Lodge. A walk back along the side of Loch Ericht brought me back to Dalwhinnie and the train back to Glasgow.
This was a walk of about 50km (32 miles) with 1700m (5600 ft) of ascent.