The Ardverikie Hills

A group of five met up at Moy at the west end of Loch Laggan. We started off together, although there were two different walks planned. New prospective member Amanda was keen to find out if the club offered navigation courses and we were so involved in our conversation that we completely missed  the track junction a couple of hundred metres from the start of our walks.  Fortunately, we had only walked another couple of hundred metres before the error dawned on us.  Embarrassingly, the two senior (senile?) members of the group had done the very same thing the last time they were here. The only slight relief to our embarrassment was that a party from the Moray Mountaineering Club, who were also on the hill, did exactly the same thing.

Error remedied, we parted ways with May and Arthur heading along Loch Laggan shores for Binniens  Shios and Shuas; Neil, Amanda and Richard headed for the Bealach Leamhain to tackle Beinn a Chlachair.

Beinn a Chlachair

Richard writes:

Neil, Amanda and Richard parted from the others at about 9.30am and with the cloud low and a bit of a low level breeze we wondered if  the scheduled three Munros might be a bit ambitious. A pleasant walk up a good south easterly path took us to Lochan Na Hearba with a beautiful view to the north east between the Binneins and Creag Pitridh. We decided we would climb Beinn a Chlachair and see what time remained on its descent before deciding anything further. A good stiff four kilometre walk up the Allt Coire Pitridh took us to the crags at the east end of our mountain. 

We ascended through the crags with a surprising amount of slithery snow slowing us. We took a bearing on reaching the ridge, for practice if nothing else, as the cloud was lifting but  the summit was still in clag. It was an easy 2km walk south-west to the summit and we bumped into members of the Moray MC on the way.

The cloud lifted and gave some fine views although it stubbornly remained on the higher summits. We decided not to retrace our steps through the crags but chose to descend the grassy and very wet shoulder to the east of Coire Mor Chlachair. By this time the cloud had lifted to give a fine view of Geal Charn and Creag Pitridhbut but as we reached the path  we felt it to be too late to tackle the other two Munros and left them for another day. We had a pleasant walk on a very mild bright evening retracing our steps and blethering about the state of the world. A fine day out ended on reaching the cars at 5.30pm

Taking part: May, Arthur, Neil, Richard and prospective member Amanda

Words: Richard and Arthur

Photos: Amanda, Neil, May and Arthur

Binnein Shios and Binnein Shuas

Arthur writes:

May and Arthur took the guidebook route for Binnien Shios, walking along the track beside Loch Laggan as far as Eileen nan Tunnag, through open woodland towards the bealach between our two hills and then climbing up the long South West ridge of Binnien Shios.  The summit cairn is perched at the North East end of the hill.  Although we were cloud free for the whole day, the cloud was down on all the surrounding summits, meaning that the normally stupendous views were downgraded to really nice views of Loch Laggan and Loch Earba.

A chill wind meant that we didn’t linger long and donning  extra layers we set off for Binnien Shuas. We chose to take the broad gulley on the left as our way through the crags on the North East face of Binnien Shuas.  That line of weakness in the rock took us more or less directly to the summit cone.

At the summit we were surprised to meet another pair - Heavy and Babs from Moray Mountaineering Club, who had ascended from the South West.  We spent some time pleasantly blethering about folk that we knew and, in the case of Corbett baggers (Babs and Arthur) swapped notes on our remaining Corbetts.  We wandered down the South West ridge together, through delightful rough outcrops and then rough grass slopes to the track and back to the cars.   

Earba Pump Storage Scheme

Gilkes Energy is proposing to create the largest pump storage scheme in the UK in this area by using Loch Bhealaich Leamhain as the upper reservoir and Lochan na h-Earba as the lower reservoir with a 3km. long tunnel connecting the two with an underground powerhouse on the shores of Loch Earba. A dam 900m. long, raising the height of the water by up to 65m will be build across the outfall of Loch a’ Bhealaich Leamhain.  Lochan na h-Earba (which is actually two lochs) will be dammed at each end raising the water level by 20m. and flooding the land between the lochs. The scheme will have 33,000Mwh. of stored energy and up to 900MW installed capacity, enough to power 725,000 homes per year.  It is anticipated to take 3 to 4 years to build. The scheme was announced in February of this year and I don’t think that a planning application has yet been made.

If you want to know more

Gilkes Energy website for the project is here  https://earbastorage.co.uk/the-project/.

Parkwatch Scotland commentary is here https://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2023/03/08/free-market-landscape-destruction-the-proposed-lochan-na-h-earba-pump-storage-scheme/.

John Muir Trust commentary is here https://www.johnmuirtrust.org/whats-new/news/1413-new-hydro-scheme-proposal-on-wild-land-boundary.