Recce above Tyndrum. Three Munros; Beinn Dubhcraig, Ben Oss and Ben Lui. March 2015

This week Stuart and I went over our maps and made a careful plan of what we thought would be manageable and enjoyable when we tackle the Watershed. We've made some minor alterations which don't take away from the spirit of the route but which will cut down on some of the less exciting hills and bumps and the potentially frustrating farmland. We also chose some back up routes for the epic days where we may run out of time and steam. As a result of this I decided to do a recce on a section that we may exclude, above Tyndrum.

Given there are so many sections that we do need to recce this may seem like an odd choice but I wanted to see what this section would be like on fresh legs and then consider if our alternative was sensible. It also gave me the opportunity to cover a section of the watershed which we may miss out. Ultimately, I would like to cover as much of it as I can, even if it's not connected to our main challenge.

Our planned day 12 (or thereabouts) is to start at Crianlarich and do a semi circular route, which loops back to Tyndrum. This takes in 3 munros; Beinn Dubhchraig, Ben Oss and Ben Lui. It's about 27km in length and climbs 2624m. I'm imagining that we're going to be hard as nails by this point and this will be a wee walk in the park but just incase we're a little tired we have the option of cutting down to a track after Ben Lui and sticking to it into Tyndrum. This won't have a huge impact on distance or elevation gain but will be a much quicker last section as it is on a track.

So this is the section Tom and I chose to do. It was convenient for a number of reasons and was a great section to practice some navigation and test out kit. We were walking today and so were not testing any running clothing but I've just uploaded OS maps onto my phone and was keen to see how reliable they are.
We wore walking boots which were great on all the gnarly ground. Generally I hate the weight of walking boots but I was glad to be wearing them today. I tested my navigation along the way by trying to see if I could pinpoint my exact location on the map and checked with my phone. I used my GPS watch to check my height for this and tried to pick up various natural features. The first few times I was around 200 metres out. It wasn't going to be disastrous on a clear day like today but not ideal either. Neither the watch or the phone maps are perfect, we could see from one of the smaller summits we climbed today that my watch is around 5 metres out at times.

The phone's location on the map is represented by an oversized dot which actually takes up a tenth of the km box, meaning that it can only pinpoint you within 100 square metres. Unlikely to be disastrous but worth noting. My first mistake happened coming off an unnamed summit towards Creag Bhuide. I'm ashamed to admit this as I made a classic mistake that Gary warned us about on both navigational courses. I took a bearing, ignored it and went with my gut instinct instead, which of course was wrong. The reason I assumed I was right over my compass was that we were following an old boundary which is still easy to see, there are lots of fence posts, old fence wire and evidence of a wall. It's just that it's not the boundary shown on the map.... I will learn from this mistake this time!
It wasn't a big deal during today's walk as I realised within 300 metres and could get back to our intended route. We had to cut through a forest to get to the start of the Bein Chuirn ascent. The forest wasn't too dense so was easy to get through and it was a thin enough section that we weren't disorientated. The deer fence at the bottom was the most awkward thing actually. From here we could see the Corbett was still very snowy and we were approaching it from its steepest, craggiest side. We walked round the side of the hill (on an excellent bearing which we didn't drift from at all) and investigated the south eastern slope which was a bit more accessible. It was a tough climb and I realised that although I may have managed a 33 mile race last weekend, I have a lot of hill training to do!
The sun came out for us and we had a brilliant view from the top, Ben Lui stayed slightly hidden in the clouds but we could see enough to realise that it was a no go without crampons. I had a surprising discovery with a 1:50 000 scale map whilst we were at the top of Bein Churin. We passed a dramatic re entrant that looked innocuous on the map but was definitely a climbers gulley and not a runners. It still had snow clinging to the side and would have been completely concealed when the snow was heavier. Despite using this scale of map most of the time I realise that I must generally be following routes or trails so haven't realised how indistinct precarious sections can look on a map. Lesson learned, for at least 5 minutes anyway.
We opted for an easier, shallower descent along the shoulder south of the hill. We hand-railed (or handle-barred, as Tom called it) a stream but were obviously paying less attention than we had been to the map as we ended up right above a waterfall, not descendable without ropes or a death wish! I was annoyed to have got into this position as I had just made a mental note to avoid steep craggy sections but I wasn't paying close enough attention to realise exactly where we were. So instead of a gentle descent we then had to follow the steep slope that we had climbed up on, not fun. This took us to the track that Stuart and I think may be a sensible route in the summer and it was one of the few runnable moments of the day.

The rest of the walk had been so undulating and steep in places that very little of it would have been easy to run. I was pleased by how much less boggy it was than I had imagined. I have started to worry that our challenge is taking on a lot of unpleasant elements, such as huge amounts of bog, tricky navigation, difficult terrain and a lot of climbing, but this small section today reminded me why I want to run the watershed. It was spectacular and felt very remote, rugged and beautiful.
I feel really lucky that I have the ability to explore places like this and am really looking forward to the rest of the Watershed experience.