Bagging Bla Bheinn

Bla Bheinn (Blaven is how you say it) is a Munro made of gabbro rock, next to the Cuillins. It is the background to much of the Elgol peninsula. 'Bagging' is what hill walkers call it when they get to the top of mountains. John bagged Bla Bheinn, I managed to put it in the trolley and get it to the till, but not quite in the bag!

Bla Bheinn was our first Scottish Munro, but we have done some English Marilyns. The Marilyns were easier it turns out - first, because they tended to be green and hilly, not rocky and mountainous, and second because here you start at sea level!!

Climbing Bla Bheinn was wonderful though, and made us feel really a part of the Scottish landscape.

The first tricky bit was understanding which mountain we were climbing. This is Bla Bheinn from the other side of Loch Slapin. We thought we were climbing the mound to the left. Turned out we were going up the big one in the middle.

Yep, that really rocky and vertical one.

The path wandered up a stream to begin with. There was a lot of up on this walk, but it was very beautiful so you didn't really notice. Until later!

Waterfalls:

Rocks...

We climbed up to a grassy plateau and then began ascending the rocky bits - trying to avoid the scree

View was opening up...

Getting higher: more rocks, less grass

Near the top it was quite moonscapeish, with lots of amazing rock formations. To reach the peak you had to scramble up a bit of a rock face and I decided to stay put.

John leapt up it like a gazelle and bagged the mountain, including the OS face plate!