The Laggan Hills: Beinn a’ Chaorainn & Beinn Teallach

The Loch Treig Hills From Beinn a’ Chaorainn

DJ’s mid-summer Munro foray was aimed at wrapping up his unfinished  Munros on either side of the A86 between Spean Bridge and Newtonmore.  And that is exactly what we achieved over a 3-day visit at the end of July. 

For the middle day, we chose these 2 hills which lie immediately N of the Laggan Dam.  They are generally done together but have no convenient high bealach between them so you have to descend below 600m between Munros (Ouch)!  So take some solace from Beinn Teallach being the 2^nd lowest Munro - it could be a lot worse!

Beinn a’ Chaorainn From Beinn Teallach

A further crumb of comfort is the high start (270m) afforded by beginning from Roughburn on the A86.  From here, we took the track that leads through the forestry plantation to open (if boggy) ground beside the Allt a’ Chaorainn.  Then it was up, up….oh, and up… over some fairly tedious grassy slopes - these hills have plenty of them!

Beinn Teallach

Half-way up, the rocky knoll of Meall Clachaig leads to a slight easing of the gradient, but eventually (and it’s a long eventually), the ground becomes more stony and you finally arrive on Beinn a’ Chaorainn’s summit ridge.  The view that suddenly appears across the steep eastern corrie of the mountain’s 3 tops towards Craig Meagaidh is the best of the day. The summit is the middle of the 3 tops and it’s always a relief to get there: Beinn a’ Chaorainn (1049m; hill of the rowan).

 

Descending to the Allt a’ Chaorainn

Any joy was short-lived though as the descent back to the Allt a’ Chaorainn was long and in places steep.  After pausing for lunch (the midges’, not ours!), the 2^nd climb of the day followed - 400m of steep, broken ground in humid windless purgatory!  But at least it put us on top just in time to see a hen harrier taking flight from the summit cairn - a very fair reward for our efforts!  There are 2 cairns; the E one being the higher of the 2 by a short stone:  Beinn Teallach (915m; forge hill).

Beinn Teallach From Beinn a’ Chaorainn

We descended the straightforward easy-angled S slopes of the mountain and re-crossed the Allt a’ Chaorainn without difficulty (it must have stopped raining for a few hours)!  A possible sparrowhawk sighting in the forest supported the slightly unfair notion that the birds we had seen today were perhaps more interesting than the hills we had climbed!  Jon was happy though - a further 3 Munros the following day gave him his clean sweep of the Laggan hills despite cloudy conditions and 3 viewless summits (so no blog)!

Check out my plans for similar walks at: http://www.hillways.co.uk/summer/summer.htm