Beinn Fhionnlaidh

Well... a blizzard, torrential rain, suspect navigation and a new friend. This vid has it all!
Beinn Fhionnlaidh 959m (3,146ft)
Starting in the car park just outside the private road to Glenure lodge (Elleric) there is free parking here. Walking along the private road gives access to the route towards Beinn Fhionnlaidh and Beinn Sgularid.
There's a decent bit of road / track walking here before you actually get to some sort of path. Around 2km before you eventually leave the access track and start making your way up hill on the path.
From here your next target is the double Lochans. Another 2.5km or so further uphill. Lochan Leac Bharainn and Lochan Càirn Deirg at around 640m elevation. These two Lochans were my nav point to try and get back to when the visibility got really bad! Care needs to be taken here though, in really bad vis it could be possible to end up IN the Lochans! They were frozen and covered in snow when I passed them.
Another Km further on the route starts to steepen around 700m. It became quite difficult to navigate here as by this time I was in thick cloud and deep snow. I pressed on and managed to ascend but not without difficulty.
The next 1km is where the majority of the remaining ascent is tackled on a broad ridge. There wasn't much to report from here. I just got my head down and got the metres climbed. The last half km is mostly flat and tackled fairly easy, however, I did feel a sense of narrowness here. I'm not sure how accurate that is as I couldn't see anything but definitely something to be aware of.
The summit has a large trig point and a very small shelter. Too small to really shelter behind. It's worth noting that the conditions I was in were brutal and at no point did I feel like I could shelter anywhere! Everywhere was exposed from the snow storm coming from the West.
Once summited and making the descent, it should be a fairly straight forward route reversal. Not in my case unfortunately. Without constantly course correcting it was really, really easy to go off course. I ended up quite a bit North of the intended route. Maybe 500m in total. Not too much, but the issue was terrain also. This was fairly untouched ground with deep snow and heavy peat bog underneath. As I mentioned previously. The Lochans are your point to return. So that was my aim.
Eventually I managed to get back to my track and followed my footprints home. A difficult day in difficult conditions. A lot of lessons learned an although the day was difficult and not overly pleasurable, the experience I gained makes it all worthwhile.
OS Explorer 384
Glen Coe & Glen Etive
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[@marcomclean3605]

We have all had similar hikes, wonder why Beinn Challium springs to mind 😂. The main thing is you got off the hill safely Stevie and a bonus getting the summit. Great video quality as standard and look forward to seeing Beinn an Dothaig. Cheers again.

[@mountainspeak390]

Thanks for the great comment Marcus. It was definitely a learning experience and one that I have already put into practice. Thanks for watching. ATB.

[@Moffatmountainadventures]

Sorry you got the mic issue. Always my fear when I go myself in winter is I drift off the path and find myself wandering way off. Shame about the weather too, you can’t pick your days off unfortunately. Still need to get out soon bud, glad to see you back out 😊👌

[@mountainspeak390]

Thank you for the great comment mate. Yeah, you’re exactly right. The fear of wandering off is one of my worries too. We need to make sure that we don’t become complacent on the mountains. Thanks again for watching. ATB.

[@paulmuir2184]

Great video again mate, those conditions looked mental - I done this one last year and was an absolute belter of a day, the views at the top of here are unbelievable looking over to Mull in the distance. Would recommend doing it again when better weather is here mate, it’d be worth it 🙌

[@mountainspeak390]

Thanks for the great comment Paul. I fully intend to do this one again in better conditions. I’d heard so many good things about it too. Need to keep an eye out for that weather window! ☀️ thanks for watching. ATB.

[@MyScottishAdventures]

Brilliant vlog Steven mate. Glad you made it off the mountain safe. Just shows you what winter conditions are like on mountains. I've not done a munro since November. Hopefully do one soon in the snow. Enjoying watching your progress on strava. Do you have any challenges this year? Really intrigued on how you can upscale the challenges you did last year.
Take care and also looking forward to your next hiking vlog.
Alan

[@mountainspeak390]

Thanks so much Alan. I appreciate the comment. I don’t have any challenges lined up this year. It’s a 2 yearly thing. 😜 as for Beinn Fhionnlaidh. Well… you need to have your wits sharp when out in the hills in winter. 🥶 thanks again for watching and following on Strava. ATB.

[@kellyannepollock]

🙂🙂👍👍