The Glen Etive Hills: Beinn Sgulaird (237)

Walk date: 18/04/13

My Munro #'s: 239

Pronunciations - translations - heights:
Byn skoolard - unknown - 937m
Statistics:
Duration - 13:45 - 18:00

Distance -  9.22 km
Total ascent -  968m
Weather - blasts of wind at the start but they soon died off as did the spatters of rain we'd felt.  the rest was still breezy but ok, with the cloud lifting on our descent.
Team - with Paul P

Other hikers: 2 others

This day saw us driving to Fersit again with the intention of another attempt on Stob Coire Sgriodain and Chno Dearg, but after sitting in the car for 15 minutes with hail smacking against us and the whole car shaking with the wind we thought better of it, and spent most if the rest of the morning in a cafe reading the newspaper! 

However, with the weather calming down in the afternoon, we decided to give the short and sharp Beinn Sgulaird a go. 

This was a good decision!  The walk starts off nicely on a private road going from the car park at Elleric to the hamlet of Glenure.  Once past these buildings though, and once over the pleasant little bridge, there is a subtle cairn on rocks to the right, which signals that, most definitely, that the only way is directly up!  

From this first field there is very little relief, just a couple of flat notches on the way up a steep and direct ascent.  For a while paths appear, but they're easy to lose amongst the grass and rocks and as long as you carry on going up you can't really go wrong. 

Toward the very top this hill is quite craggy and bouldery, but bizarrely this made the hiking quicker as we could easily stride over the gaps.  Soon we were at the cairn, happy to have claimed a hill in this week of weather woes, and so not too sad to be in the cloud without a view to speak of.  

The return was pretty straightforward.  We veered off our exact route up a little, but it was of little concern as gravity's helping hand made sure progress was very quick!  After that it was a shift over to the Glencoe Youth Hostel ready for our final two days!

The private road to Glenure, with Beinn Sgulaird in the distance:

Me celebrating on top:

And Paul!

Halfway down and the views opened up, looking west:

This was from the next day's hike; Beinn Sgulaird from the east: