Ascent of Creag Dubh

It was with some reluctance on the Wednesday that I opted for another local Graham in Creag Dubh. I think that I was concerned that my toils of the previous day might tell, and that an easier day was in order. If that was what I considered today to be then I was wrong.

Creag Dubh is a beautiful hill both from Newtonmore, and from Glen Banchor. I walked with Steve, John and Sarah. The object was to fly up to the top and race around to find Cluny’s Cave.

We headed up the old road for maybe half a mile before heading up a farm track and over fields to a gate. The gate was locked, and the surrounding fence electrified. We had to climb over what looked like a huge stile. Whether we were supposed to climb it or not, I don’t know, but it landed us at the foot of the ridge.

We headed up the ridge, and it took what seemed like an eternity in the cloud before we finally arrived on the 756m summit. Steve and I were particularly concerned about the crags on the map, I didn’t fancy the look of them on paper and he had seen them before. We sat for lunch above some crags before skirting alongside the ridge in a South Easterly direction until the crags disappeared and the gradient became less steep. Resisting the others’ urges to find a route through the crags to this bloody cave!

We proceeded over to the monument, looking back at the very impressive crags, trying to sight the cave. We were unable to spot the cave though, and we headed back down to the road through the valley between the crags and the monument.

Looking all the way down for the cave we were unable to locate it, and we then had to weather a very long road walk back to the hotel, I believe that we arrived back at about 16:00, so again it was 7 hours of walking.

The plan for the next day I think was quite easy – A’Chailleach and Carn Sgulain!